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Cécile Raynal
Squirrel by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, dark

2025

$9,779.14
£7,362.20
€8,280
CA$13,471.41
A$15,087.13
CHF 7,872.22
MX$184,282.86
NOK 100,157.54
SEK 94,410.48
DKK 63,028.48

About the Item

Squirrel is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin and plaster sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 75 × 30 × 60 cm (29.5 × 11.8 × 23.6 in). This sculpture is unique and comes with an authenticity certificate. This piece forms part of the larger sculptural installation Chœur de bêtes (Choir of Beasts), which brings together eleven animal figures arranged around a central cephalophoric figure. Each creature, rendered at a similar scale regardless of species, disrupts natural proportions and adopts occasionally surreal postures, deepening the scene’s enigmatic atmosphere. Describing the installation, Raynal writes: “Hybrid beasts and creatures, peoples, mass-culture: wolf, hare, fox, raccoon, goat, donkey, crow, feline, badger, world-tree, birder. So many motifs, subjects, metaphorical presences. […] They embody other spirits, other imaginations, other ways of seeing, moving and being moved. The peoples of the beasts suffer us, deplore us, since always and everywhere, we fabulate them. They represent us, they duplicate us. […] So I model great silences between man and beast, envisaging possible alliances. The future is only possible in an alliance, a common field, an earthy and spiritual heart.” Cœur de bêtes was featured in Raynal’s 2025 solo exhibition À la table des Dames (At the Ladies’ Table) at the historic Montivilliers Abbey in Normandy, a former convent and a longstanding space of female presence. In this setting, Raynal chose to bring together sculpted portraits of women and animals, creating powerful dialogues between human and beast, strength and vulnerability, wildness and care. Far from aiming to charm, Raynal’s sculptures often carry an unsettling edge. Rough and unpolished, they bear the traces of their formation—of contact with clay, weight, pressure, and time. Yet they stand firm, alive. Her work invites us into a world where the animal, the feminine, the instinctive, and the unruly are reclaimed as vital forces. Raynal’s artistic process unfolds between her studio in Normandy and residencies in socially marginal places—prisons, hospitals, convents—where she creates clay portraits in response to the individuals she encounters. These sculpted interactions are later transformed in the studio, enriched by references to myths, folktales, and literature, giving rise to hybrid figures—part animal, part human. Through these creatures, the artist opens a space of connection, suggesting a shared language and spiritual terrain between humans and beasts.
  • Creator:
    Cécile Raynal (1966, French)
  • Creation Year:
    2025
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 29.53 in (75 cm)Width: 11.82 in (30 cm)Depth: 23.63 in (60 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Paris, FR
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU803116735202

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