Claude and Francois Xavier Lalanne

On first impressions, the Pomme Bouche (directly translated as apple mouth) brooch by Claude Lalanne, appears surreal and other-worldly, but if this is your first encounter with Lalanne’s work, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Half of husband and wife co-designing team ‘Les Lalanne’, Claude, a Parisian and now 93 years old, has a fascination with interpreting images found in nature. She, and her late husband, Francois-Xavier Lalanne.The couple met in 1952 at Francois-Xavier’s first exhibition of paintings and with their shared interest in sculpture they started on a career path concentrating in that medium. They were contemporaries of great Parisians such as Serge Gainsbourg and Marcel Duchamp. Gainsbourg famously used an image of their sculpture ‘L’homme de tete du chou’ for his 1976 album cover and named the album after it too – he also bought the original sculpture.

Taking inspiration from nature, but adding a surreal twist, quickly became their signature style. Claude once said that visiting museums or galleries had the effect of diluting their style with the ideas of others. Her preference was to re-interpret natural forms.

Their collective efforts, under the name ‘Les Lalanne’, and their individual designs found admirers in the likes of Yves Saint Laurent. Claude Lalanne worked with Yves Saint Laurent, creating jewellery designs for his collections. The posthumous sale of Laurent’s art collection in 2008 offered a number of their works. A sculptural bar by Les Lalanne sold at that auction for 2.75m Euros, achieving fifteen times its low estimate.

While Claude concentrated on botanical, organic forms, her husband was more inclined towards the animal kingdom. Both had an interest in creating functional pieces, a chair incorporating a crocodile amongst reeds and a desk in the form of a rhino are just some examples of their pieces. Many of their collective works were commissioned for communal gardens and grand properties; Chatsworth House in Derbyshire has a large sculpture of a cow, called Vache Paysage, a rectangle cut out of its middle allows the viewer to see the landscape and grand house beyond. Regent’s Park boasts a cabbage with the feet of a bird named ‘Le Chou de Milan’. Across Paris and wider Europe, their designs create fascination and talking points.

The style of their pieces is Art Nouveau meets Surrealism, sturdiness meets whimsy and the apple is often seen in the work of Claude. In 2012, a 5.5inch ornamental gilt bronze Pomme Bouche designed in 1975, sold at Christies for £23,750. The mouths on the different examples of the ornaments appear with different expressions. The brooch we have for sale in this month’s auction wears a benign, ethereal grin, as if in acknowledgment of its own oddness. It is made from 24 grams of weighty bronze and measures 3.3 by 4cms. It is as much a sculpture, as it is a wearable piece of art and is a small celebration of the modernist artistic movement in Paris.

Lot 505 is entered for sale with an estimate of £300 – £400. The auction will take place on Monday 22nd May 2017.

The full catalogue is available to view online now and in person at the following times:

19th May 2017 10am – 4pm
20th May 2017 11am – 4pm
22th May 2017 8.30am – 10am