Colin Gleadell reports on the recent sale in Paris of the Lalanne’s work:
If any artists’ markets received a shot in the arm from the extraordinary auction of the collection of Yves Saint Laurent in Paris in February, it was the French designer/sculptor Francois-Xavier Lalanne, who died last year, and his wife, Claude Lalanne. Since his “YSL bar”, a rectangular console cut with a blowtorch, sold for a record €2.7 million (£2.4 million), and his wife’s room full of mirrors framed by twisted bronze branches set another record at €1.8 million, the Lalannes have become the darlings of the Paris salerooms. Last week, Christie’s offered nearly 50 of their works in Paris and all were sold, amassing a grand total of €3.4 million, far above estimates. Before the Saint Laurent sale, that would have been unthinkable. One work, a bronze table in the shape of a seated monkey holding a leaf above its head, had been estimated to sell for €10,000 to €15,000, and sold for €349,000. However, the highest price of the week came at Sotheby’s, where François-Xavier’s Sauterelle, a sculpture in the form of a grasshopper, which opens up to become a free-standing bar, sold for €540,750. The curators of the Queen’s collection should take note, as an identical sculpture was received as a gift from President Georges Pompidou.
Jacqueline Kennedy’s Drawings of JFK for Sale (Telegraph)
