Skip to main content
Video Loading
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 14

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

2025

$9,963.71
£7,376.66
€8,280
CA$13,795.46
A$15,061.33
CHF 7,896.04
MX$182,925.71
NOK 98,608.70
SEK 93,112.91
DKK 63,037.41

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

More From This Seller

View All
Hare by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Hare is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 84 × 30 × 52 cm (33 × 11.8 × 20.4 in). This scul...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Stoneware, Resin, Plaster

Char by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Char is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 84 × 28 × 48 cm (33 × 11 × 18.9 in). This sculpt...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Stoneware, Resin, Plaster

Goat by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Goat is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 82 × 35 × 45 cm (32.2 × 13.7 × 17.7 in). This sc...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Stoneware, Resin, Plaster

Badger by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Badger is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 80 × 36 × 52 cm (31.5 × 14.1 × 20.4 in). This ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Stoneware, Resin, Plaster

Donkey by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, fable, clay
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Donkey is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 82 × 60 × 60 cm (32.2 × 23.6 × 23.6 in). This ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Clay, Stoneware, Resin, Plaster

Lupus by Cécile Raynal - Animal smoke-fired stoneware sculpture, dark
By Cécile Raynal
Located in Paris, FR
Lupus is a unique smoke-fired stoneware, resin, plaster and clay sculpture by French contemporary artist Cécile Raynal, dimensions are 90 × 30 × 100 cm (35.4 × 11.8 × 39.3 in) This s...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Stoneware

You May Also Like

Iron Squirrel
By Brandon Vickerd
Located in Montreal, Quebec
The expression phantom limb describes the persistent sensation of a missing body part. It suggests an unresolved tension, a yearning for something that once was and has since been lo...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Iron

Squirrel II, Bronze Sculpture by T. Galbreath
By T. Galbreath
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: T. Galbreath Title: Squirrel I Year: 1997 Medium: Bronze Sculpture, Signature and number inscribed Edition: 71/100 Size: 7 in. x 3 in. x 3 in. (17.78 cm x 7.62 cm x 7.62 cm)
Category

1990s Realist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Squirrel I
Located in Somerset West, WC
Squirrel I is a limited edition bronze sculpture.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Catch me if you can!- 21st Century Dutch Bronze Sculpture of a Squirrel
By Frans van Straaten
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
This squirrel is made by Dutch Artist Frans van Straaten. Van Straaten should be called an artist of balance always searching for harmony between force and movement in combination with space. Because of the wide range in his art-education he has mastered the art of drawing, painting and sculpting technology. However, the classical plastic art of sculpture and modelling opens up the possibility for him to create his own language of sculpture in answer to his urge for art. Due to this style of sculpting, the preference for bronze is natural. After his study of sculpture at the Academy of Art in Rotterdam (1988), Frans van Straaten creates bronze sculptures in which he unites force and movement. Feeling and Emotion converted into Matter Sculpture is an experience of space combined with the challenge of the three-dimensional. The tension of space and movement are the themes, which Frans expresses in his sculptures. Summary it can be said that the power of life and being, the feeling and emotion by force and movement will be converted into matter. The experience of space is being expressed in the shapes and characters in each of Frans’ sculptures. His sculptures of bulls express explosive power while the horses find their strength in being elegant. Each sculpture recalls this way their own association and serves as a metaphor for a certain emotion. Feelings, which has inspired the artist for each sculpture. Powerful and Elegant Looking at the works of this artist, it becomes very clear that one of his most important sources is his background in art history. The Renaissance period as well as several Italian artists served as inspiration to Frans as a sculpture. For instance the expressions in Leonardo da Vinci’s artworks, and also Giovanni Bologna...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Squirrel II with Base
Located in Somerset West, WC
Squirrel II is a limited edition bronze sculpture. Created with the lost wax casting process.
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

''Alerto Hare'', Contemporary Bronze Sculpture Portrait of a Hare
By Ans Zondag
Located in Utrecht, NL
After studying Fine Art in the Netherlands Ans Zondag (1959) spent several years abroad in order to explore different artistic areas and to establish which technique suited her best....
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze