Lalanne Carpe sculpture reels in $2.4M at Bonhams Modern Decorative Art + Design sale in New York
Carpe (Très Grande) by François-Xavier Lalanne. Sold for $2,430,313 (Estimate: $650,000-850,000).
NEW YORK, NY
.- A monumental Lalanne sculpture, Carpe (Très Grande), achieved an impressive $2,430,313 at Bonhams Modern Decorative Art + Design Sale in New York on December 17. Conceived and cast in 2000, the work had an estimate of $650,000-850,000.
Bonhams Head of Modern Decorative Art and Design in New York, Benjamin Walker said: This is one of the largest works ever cast by Les Lalanne, and it perfectly encapsulated the playfulness that they were known for. François-Xavier was particularly famous for his exploration of Les Animalier themes, and Carpe (Très Grande) is an exceptional example of the elegant execution of his craft. Were thrilled that it achieved such an impressive result the highest price of any design work in the very busy New York Design week.
The First Art Newspaper on the Net
by Doreen Carvajal
(NYT NEWS SERVICE)
.- For more than 70 years, Léone Meyers family has fought to reclaim a looted painting, and yet she cannot bear the thought of displaying it in her Left Bank home, across from the River Seine. The small work, by Camille Pissarro, shows a shepherdess tending her flock, and hangs not far away at the Musée dOrsay, with other precious French impressionist paintings. But the peaceful countryside scene from 1886 is fraught with a backstory of plunder, family tragedy and legal battles that stretch from Paris to Oklahoma. Meyers mother, grandmother, uncle and brother died in Auschwitz. Her father hid the painting in a French bank that was looted in 1941 by the Nazis, and the work vanished in the murky universe of art market collaborators and middlemen. Decades later, in 2012, she discovered the whereabouts of La Bergère, or Shepherdess Bringing in Sheep, in the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, at th