The global art market may still be sluggish, but strong demand for rare pieces by François-Xavier Lalanne helped one signature sculpture sell for $16.422 million at Sotheby’s today.
“Even in this horrible climate, I will be surprised if this doesn’t do well,” art advisor Laura Lester told ARTnews prior to the sale. “There’s always trophy hunters out there.”
Grand Rhinocéros II (2003), a life-size sculptural gold patinated bronze, brass, and leather desk in the shape of the animal, was the featured lot for Sotheby’s Important Design day sale in New York on June 11. It measures more than four-feet wide, 8.5-feet in length, and is two feet in height. The pre-sale estimate was $3 million to $5 million.
The sculpture was the first edition out of eight, and was acquired by the current owners in 2003 from Galerie Mitterand in Paris. The last time Grand Rhinocéros II appeared at auction, the seventh edition sold for €5.5 million with fees on a high estimate of €3 million at Sotheby’s Paris on May 22, 2022.
Bidding for Lot 105 today started at $2.5 million. After 45 bids placed online and by Sotheby’s specialists on the phone over 13 minutes, Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate to hammer at $13.75 million, or $16.422 million with fees, to a bidder on the phone.
Today’s auction result for Grand Rhinocéros II is the second-highest for François-Xavier Lalanne. The artist’s record is held by Rhinocrétaire I, which sold for $19.4 million with fees, well past its high estimate of $6.4 million, at Christie’s Paris in October 2023.
The price for Grand Rhinocéros II also exceeds last month’s sale of François-Xavier Lalanne’s Bar aux Autruches (1967-1968) for €11.1 million ($12 million) after an 11-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s Paris on May 20. The bar in the shape of two life-size ostriches and a large egg had an estimate of €3 million to €4 million.
The results are further evidence of ongoing, strong demand for works by François-Xavier and his wife Claude Lalanne by collectors across the categories of design, fine art, post-war and contemporary, impressionist and modern art. “If there was the Venn diagram of all of those collectors, Lalanne is like that little, tiny place where they all meet in the middle,” Lester said. “You just have such a broad cross section of collectors who would be interested in something like this, and they’re very hard to come by.”
It’s worth noting the decline in the artists’ primary market after the sale of more than 700 pieces from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their two daughters, Dorothée and Marie by Sotheby’s and Christie’s during various sales in Paris and New York between 2019 and 2024.
“Now that everything has been dispersed and [François-Xavier and Claude are] both gone, it’s just like you have to wait for them to come up at auction. You really, really do,” said Lester, who had worked with the Lalanne estate when she was a director at Kasmin gallery. “Despite the price tag, despite what a monumental item this is, there’s going to be someone for it.”
