Latest Les Lalanne Sale Smashes Christie’s Record
Above: François-Xavier Lalanne’s Âne Planté brought in a record $8.4 million at Christie’s yesterday.
The sheep weren’t cheap. Nor were the gorillas, fish, birds, or dozens of other whimsical bronze creatures for sale yesterday as part of Christie’s monumental auction “Sculpting Paradise: The Collection of Marie Lalanne.” The auction, the largest in the United States to date of works by the late French sculptors François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, brought in just over $77 million—the highest-ever figure for a design sale at Christie’s.
“It exceeded our best hopes,” says Christie’s Daphné Riou. “It was really great to see global participation—20 percent of the clients were new to Christie’s. It really proved that New York was a global platform and the best platform.”
Of the 157 lots, all drawn from the private collection of the artists’ daughter Marie, 18 exceeded the $1 million mark. Highlights included Les Trois Grands Moutons de Peter, a trio of sheep that sold for $6.3 million, including the buyer’s premium; Gorille Consolé, a gilt-bronze table supported by a gorilla, which realized $3.4 million; Le Grande Ourse, a towering bronze bear that sold for $3.7 million; and Très Grand Choupatte, a surreal cabbage sprouting chicken legs that reached $3.5 million.
The day’s highlight, however, was when Âne Planté, a sweet-faced patinated-bronze burro designed by François-Xavier in 2000, reached the block. The sale culminated in a showdown between two phone bidders, who duked it out from opposing sides of the sale room. The audience let out an audible gasp when the top bid reached $3 million and swiveled their necks as competing offers continued to climb. The hammer fell at $7 million for the beast of burden, for a total price of $8.4 million—a stunning 28 times more than its low estimate.
“It is rather rare,” Riou says of the sculpture. “For example, another one sold recently at Sotheby’s for $3 million. It represents, perfectly, the Lalanne period: it’s functional, it’s a large scale, and it’s really familiar.”
It wasn’t just the big-ticket items that well exceeded their estimates; many works went for tenfold their anticipated prices—and in some cases, even more. A whimsical François-Xavier etching of a boar, estimated to bring in just between $300 and $500, yielded $10,000. Escargot Deux Doigts, a surreal double-snail work by Claude, was expected to fetch between $3,000 and $5,000; instead it realized $47,880.
“They are very approachable artists,” Riou says. “Their work is joyful and playful and contains many layers of inspiration, from mythology to nature to art history; looking at a Lalanne, you can really see so many different connections.”
The sale comes on the heels of a multiyear hot streak of Les Lalanne work. Last year at Sotheby’s in Paris, a family-owned collection brought in $92.6 million, more than five times the initial auction estimate.
“Sculpting Paradise” kicked off a week of design auctions at Christie’s, which will include sales of work by Alberto and Diego Giacometti, pieces by 20th-century masters such as Frank Lloyd Wright and Isamu Noguchi, and rarities from Tiffany Studios.
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