Francois Xavier-Lalanne’s unique 1964 piece Rhinocrétaire I made €18,335,000 at a dedicated stand alone single lot auction at Christie’s in Paris today. This is a new world record for Lalanne. His first major sculpture had been estimated at €4-€6 million. Rhinocrétaire I first appeared at Jeanine Restany’s trailblazing Galerie J in the artist’s debut joint exhibition with his wife Claude Lalanne. A functional, metamorphic work, Rhinocrétaire I is at once a bar, an illuminated writing desk, and a seminal early sculpture that foreshadows the poetic exuberance and preternatural inventions that defined the artist’s work for the next forty-four years. Exhibited only one other time, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in 2010, Rhinocrétaire I has remained in the private collection of the same French family since the 1964 Galerie J. exhibition.