Francois-Xavier Lalanne valuation
Made sheep you can sit on, a rhinoceros that opens into a desk, and a bar inside a hippopotamus.
Francois-Xavier Lalanne was born at Agen in 1927, worked as a guard at the Louvre, and shared a Montparnasse studio next to Brancusi before meeting Claude Dupuis, whom he married; from 1956 they exhibited together as Les Lalanne while always making separate work.
What a work by Francois-Xavier Lalanne is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
Francois-Xavier Lalanne was born at Agen in 1927, worked as a guard at the Louvre, and shared a Montparnasse studio next to Brancusi before meeting Claude Dupuis, whom he married; from 1956 they exhibited together as Les Lalanne while always making separate work. His contribution was the animal that is also furniture: the Moutons, flocks of sheep in wool and bronze made to be sat on, first shown in 1965; the Rhinoceros that opens into a writing desk; the Hippopotame bathroom. The refusal to separate sculpture from function was taken as frivolous for decades and is now the reason the work is sought. He died in 2008.
The Moutons are the centre of this market and exist in several distinct editions and versions over forty years — original wool fleece, epoxy stone, bronze — which behave very differently, so identifying the exact version, edition and date is the whole task. Original wool sheep have usually been re-fleeced, and that is disclosed rather than hidden. The Lalanne archive and the estate handle authentication. Later editions and posthumous production exist and are valued separately from lifetime work.
At a glance
- Born
- 28 August 1927, Agen
- Died
- 7 December 2008, Ury
The Académie Julian, the Louvre and Santa Monica
Lalanne studied sculpture, drawing and painting at the Académie Julian from the age of eighteen, and in 1948 worked as an attendant in the Oriental Antiquities department of the Louvre. He and Claude began to attract attention in Paris in the 1960s, when Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé became collectors.
Animals were his subject and plants hers, and the two come together in the topiary fountains they made for the city of Santa Monica in 1989. In 2009 their sculpture was shown on Park Avenue in New York, and in 2021 the Clark Art Institute held Claude & François-Xavier Lalanne: Nature Transformed.
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
