A bespoke ensemble of 15 mirrors by Claude Lalanne sold at Sotheby’s New York today for $33.5 million, breaking the artist’s secondary-market record and becoming the most valuable design work ever to leave the auction block.
Collectively titled Important and Unique Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, the piece sold for more than double its pre-sale high estimate ($10 million–15 million), surpassing a functioning bar in the shape of a hippopotamus by François-Xavier Lalanne—the husband and longtime collaborator of Claude Lalanne—which fetched $31.4 million at Sotheby’s in December 2025.
The gilt-bronze mirrors exemplify Claude’s whimsical flair. Each is framed by a delicate vine of electroplated leaves sourced from the artist’s own garden—“a magnum opus of [Claude Lalanne’s] early artistic imagination,” according to Sotheby’s. As the wry title suggests, the mirrors were a 1974 commission installed in the famously aesthetic “Salon de Musique” of the Paris residence of couture designer Yves Saint Laurent.
The mirrors were in the possession of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg, a pair of powerhouse collectors of 20th-century art and design—a selection of which is being offered in a series of Sotheby’s sales running through May under the subtitle “Design Masters.” Roughly 125 design objects will be sold in what Sotheby’s has billed as “a once-in-a-generation moment for the design market: the most valuable single-owner design sale” in the auction house’s history, and the first such auction to be held in its newly christened space in the Breuer building.
According to Sotheby’s, Terry de Gunzburg first encountered the mirrors during her 15-year tenure as creative director of Yves Saint Laurent Beauté’s cosmetics line. She and Jean de Gunzburg, a respected molecular and cell biologist, later added them to a collection of avant-garde design shaped by a strong affinity for French modernism. As they noted in a statement, the collection reflects the “values” that guided them—“freedom of thought, creativity, and discovery.” Their holdings include seminal works by Art Deco pioneer André Groult, architect Paul Dupré-Lafon, and cabinetmaker Eugène Printz, among others now coming to auction.
A detail of ‘Important and Unique Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors for Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’ by Claude Lalanne (ca. 1974).
Courtesy Sotheby’s
“The Pièce de résistance” of the Gunzburg collection is Lalanne’s mirrors, said Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s chairman of 20th century design in a statement, adding: “As global demand for masterpiece-level design continues to intensify, this collection offers a rare opportunity to acquire works of truly unprecedented quality. It stands at the forefront of a new era in collecting, embodying the vision and discernment that defines today’s pursuit of exceptional design.”
The market for work by François-Xavier Lalanne and Claude Lalanne—collectively known as Les Lalanne—is fast ascendant. In a previous ARTnews report, one expert went so far as to say that the rise in monetary value for their work is a sign that the overall market is strong.
