After a Les Lalanne Hippo Tub Sparked a Bidding Frenzy Last Year, Sotheby’s Paris Is Now Selling a Full Bathroom Set for $2.7 Million

All the bidders who lost out on
buying the bronze hippopotamus-shaped bathtub by the French
designers François-Xavier and Claude
Lalanne—which sold last fall for
a stunning $4.3 million,
nearly three times its high estimate—now have another
chance.

A second hippopotamus tub—and
two other lavatory hippos—are going on sale at
Sotheby’s “Important Design” sale in Paris this June. The
auction house will
offer a unique Lalanne copper, gilded metal, and patinated bronze
hippopotamus bathroom set that includes the tub, a hippo that holds a sink and vanity, and
another with a toilet and bidet. The trio, sold as a set, is
estimated to go for €2.5 million ($2.7 million).

Sotheby’s has had a strong run
with Les Lalanne-related sales in recent months. In October, a
two-day, white-glove sale of the designers’ collection
brought in $101.5
million at the auction
house’s Paris location, quadrupling its presale expectations. The
event saw more than 4,000 bidders from 43 countries.

“Following our landmark two-day
auction of the personal collection of the late artist duo Claude
and François-Xavier Lalanne last October, it is a great feeling to
once again be surprised and delighted by the genius of Les Lalanne,
with perhaps one of their most brilliant metamorphoses,” said
Florent Jeanniard, head of 20th century design at Sotheby’s Europe,
in a statement.

The set was commissioned in the
1990s by an unnamed collector, who was the grandson of Swiss
sculptor Edouard-Marcel Sandoz. The collector had known the
Lalannes since the ‘70s, when he met the couple’s daughter Valérie
Kling.

Inspired by the blue-resin hippo
tub the Lalannes previously created for Marcel Duchamp, the
collector and his wife approached the designers with the idea for
the bathroom set. The hippos were originally pitched as triplets,
but, according to Sotheby’s, François-Xavier balked at that idea,
noting that hippopotamuses are not capable of conceiving twins.
Eventually, they settled on a mother (the bathtub) and her two
children.

The June sale is currently
scheduled as a live auction. Per its policy, the auction house says
any changes to this schedule will be announced “approximately 30
days prior to the existing sale date.”

The post After a Les Lalanne Hippo Tub Sparked a Bidding
Frenzy Last Year, Sotheby’s Paris Is Now Selling a Full Bathroom
Set for $2.7 Million appeared first on artnet News.