$33.5 Million Sale Heralds New Auction Record for Claude Lalanne

A new auction record for work by Claude Lalanne was set last night at Sotheby’s in New York City when the 20th-century French artist’s Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors (1974–1985) achieved $33.5 million USD (£24.8 million).

Sold as part of an auction of 107 pieces from the collection of Jean and Terry de Gunzburg, five bidders battled for 10 minutes to secure the installation. The final sale eclipsed Sotheby’s own record for the highest-ever price achieved for a work of design at auction, previously set in December 2025 when François-Xavier Lalanne’s Hippopotame Bar, pièce unique sold for $31.4 million USD (£23.3 million).

Shortly after the sale, Sotheby’s said in a statement: “The result underscores the extraordinary and sustained global demand for works by Les Lalanne, and cements this ensemble as one of the defining achievements in the history of 20th-century design.”

Sculptors Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, known as “Les Lalanne”, were commissioned on several occasions by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé; Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors was designed and assembled for the Salon de Musique of Saint Laurent and Bergé’s Paris apartment.

Claude Lalanne (1925–2019) began by designing two mirrors and, between 1974–1985, added 13 more until the piece was a fully realised environmental installation. Lalanne made the mirrors entirely by hand using gilt bronze, galvanised copper and mirrored glass. Each one is framed in electroplated leaves from the artist’s own garden.

Over more than four decades, Jean and Terry de Gunzburg assembled a large private collection of 20th-century art and design in their New York home.

Terry de Gunzburg was creative director at Yves Saint Laurent Beauté—creating Touche Éclat concealer—before founding her own brand, By Terry, in 1998. Jean de Gunzburg is a molecular and cell biologist who worked at the Pasteur Institute and Institut Curie. They acquired Ensemble of Fifteen Mirrors during the YSL Collection sale in 2009.

Ahead of the record-breaking sale, Florent Jeanniard, Sotheby’s chairman and co-worldwide head of design, described the couple’s collection as “one of the most intellectually rigorous and aesthetically coherent design collections of our time”.

“Their New York home became a complete artistic environment, where seminal creations by the greatest artists and designers of the 20th century exist in remarkable harmony,” he said.