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Lot Essay
A recurring animal in François-Xavier Lalanne’s fanciful bestiary, these Moutons de Pierre (Stone Sheep), made from a material that evokes the colour of wool and the rigidity of stone, illustrate the artist’s semantic approach. The animal motif is an essential part of the artist’s vocabulary. Indeed, for him, the animal world offers ‘an infinite repertoire of forms linked to a universal symbolism. Children and adults alike can relate to it’ (F-X. Lalanne quoted in D. Marchesseau, Les Lalanne, Paris 1998, p. 38).
Omnipresent in Lalanne’s creative landscape, sheep appeared publicly for the first time in 1966 during the Salon de la Jeune peinture at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. His surprising twenty-four woollen sheep caused a sensation. They were presented under the title Pour Polyphème (For Polyphemus), a whimsical evocation of Greek mythology and the episode in which Ulysses and his companions escape from the cave of Cyclopes Polyphemus by binding themselves to the undersides of sheep.
This first generation of sheep was followed by the Moutons de Pierre, whose first flock was created in 1979 for the Agen-Foulayronnes high school. These epoxy and bronze stone sheep are designed to flourish outdoors. Cast in monolithic blocks of concrete with a cloud-like cut-out, Moutons de Pierre reflect the balance of volumes and the accuracy of line that are the foundation of Lalanne's personal research. In 1949, while working as a watchman at the Musée du Louvre, he roamed through the Department of Oriental Antiquities and learned how to read a work of art. Inspired by ancient statuary from Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia, he developed the beginnings of his formal vocabulary. The idea of establishing physical contact with the stone enabled him to grasp all its nuances: ‘On Tuesdays, when the museum was closed,’ he remembers, ‘I couldn’t resist the temptation to sit astride the Apis ox’ (F-X. Lalanne quoted in D. Abadie, Lalanne(s), Paris 2008, p. 303). His sheep, in turn, invite viewers to touch them.
Another wave of morphologically distinct sheep was born in 1988. Created for the ethnography room at the Musée de la Vallée in Barcelonnette, devoted to transhumance, these sheep were named Moutons Transhumants. A ram, an ewe and a lamb completed a new family of stone creatures at the end of the 90s under the name Les Nouveaux Moutons. A final variation of the Moutons de Pierre appeared in the 2000s, with thicker forms echoing those of the Trois Grands Moutons de Peter created at the same time, entirely in bronze with gilt patina.
Produced in 1984 in patinated bronze and epoxy stone, the two iconic Moutons de Pierre presented here are among the very earliest examples imagined by the artist. Lalanne sculpts dreams and invites them into domestic spaces: ‘It's easier to have a sculpture in a flat than a real sheep. And it's even better if you can sit on it’ (F-X. Lalanne quoted in D. Marchesseau, ibid., p. 36).
Omnipresent in Lalanne’s creative landscape, sheep appeared publicly for the first time in 1966 during the Salon de la Jeune peinture at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. His surprising twenty-four woollen sheep caused a sensation. They were presented under the title Pour Polyphème (For Polyphemus), a whimsical evocation of Greek mythology and the episode in which Ulysses and his companions escape from the cave of Cyclopes Polyphemus by binding themselves to the undersides of sheep.
This first generation of sheep was followed by the Moutons de Pierre, whose first flock was created in 1979 for the Agen-Foulayronnes high school. These epoxy and bronze stone sheep are designed to flourish outdoors. Cast in monolithic blocks of concrete with a cloud-like cut-out, Moutons de Pierre reflect the balance of volumes and the accuracy of line that are the foundation of Lalanne's personal research. In 1949, while working as a watchman at the Musée du Louvre, he roamed through the Department of Oriental Antiquities and learned how to read a work of art. Inspired by ancient statuary from Egypt, Rome and Mesopotamia, he developed the beginnings of his formal vocabulary. The idea of establishing physical contact with the stone enabled him to grasp all its nuances: ‘On Tuesdays, when the museum was closed,’ he remembers, ‘I couldn’t resist the temptation to sit astride the Apis ox’ (F-X. Lalanne quoted in D. Abadie, Lalanne(s), Paris 2008, p. 303). His sheep, in turn, invite viewers to touch them.
Another wave of morphologically distinct sheep was born in 1988. Created for the ethnography room at the Musée de la Vallée in Barcelonnette, devoted to transhumance, these sheep were named Moutons Transhumants. A ram, an ewe and a lamb completed a new family of stone creatures at the end of the 90s under the name Les Nouveaux Moutons. A final variation of the Moutons de Pierre appeared in the 2000s, with thicker forms echoing those of the Trois Grands Moutons de Peter created at the same time, entirely in bronze with gilt patina.
Produced in 1984 in patinated bronze and epoxy stone, the two iconic Moutons de Pierre presented here are among the very earliest examples imagined by the artist. Lalanne sculpts dreams and invites them into domestic spaces: ‘It's easier to have a sculpture in a flat than a real sheep. And it's even better if you can sit on it’ (F-X. Lalanne quoted in D. Marchesseau, ibid., p. 36).