A life-size bronze rhinoceros desk by François-Xavier Lalanne, titled *Grand Rhinocéros II* (2003), sold for $16.422 million at Sotheby’s Important Design day sale in New York on June 11. The piece, which measures over four feet wide and 8.5 feet long, had a pre-sale estimate of $3–5 million. After 45 bids over 13 minutes, it hammered at $13.75 million, with the final price including buyer’s premium. The sculpture was the first of eight editions and had been acquired from Galerie Mitterand in Paris in 2003.
The sale underscores sustained demand for Lalanne’s work despite a sluggish broader art market, achieving the artist’s second-highest auction result. It follows other strong Lalanne sales, including *Rhinocrétaire I* ($19.4 million at Christie’s in 2023) and *Bar aux Autruches* ($12 million at Sotheby’s in May 2025). The result highlights how rare, trophy-worthy pieces by the Lalanne couple continue to attract a wide cross-section of collectors from design, fine art, and contemporary categories, even as the primary market has contracted following the dispersal of the estate’s collection.