FLOAT 100 · Art · No. 83
Balloon Dog (Orange)
Two years after a ten-foot steel Balloon Dog (Orange) set an auction record for a living artist at $58.4 million, Jeff Koons and a Limoges porcelain house shrank it onto a plate in an edition of 2,300 that still sells new for $9,000, with instructions never to touch it with bare hands.
- Year
- 2015
- Maker
- Jeff Koons
- By price in art
- 78 of 100
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Create a free account- Artist
- Jeff Koons (born 1955, York, Pennsylvania)
- Date
- 2015
- Medium
- Porcelain with a metallic orange finish, the dog mounted on a porcelain plate
- Size
- 26.7 x 26.7 x 12.7 cm (10 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 5 in)
- Edition
- 2,300, plus 50 artist's proofs
- Maker
- Bernardaud, Limoges, France
- Publisher
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA); net proceeds go to the museum
- Markings
- Signature and edition number fired onto the back; certificate of authenticity
- Price new
- $9,000 from the maker and from the MOCA store when checked in October 2026
- Source sculpture
- Balloon Dog (Orange), 1994-2000, mirror-polished stainless steel, sold for $58.4 million in November 2013
From a children's party to a ten-foot steel dog
Koons conceived his Celebration series in 1994: large sculptures of balloon dogs, hearts and Easter eggs, the stuff of holidays and birthday parties. The Balloon Dog sculptures were made between 1994 and 2000 in five versions, blue, magenta, yellow, orange and red, each of mirror-polished stainless steel with a transparent colored coating. Each stands about 307 cm tall and 363 cm long.
'I've always enjoyed balloon animals because they're like us,' Koons has said. 'We're balloons. You take a breath and you inhale, it's an optimism. You exhale, and it's kind of a symbol of death.'
On November 12, 2013, the steel Balloon Dog (Orange) sold at an evening auction in New York for $58.4 million, above its $55 million high estimate. It was then the highest auction price for a work by a living artist. Koons himself passed it in 2019 when his stainless steel Rabbit brought $91.1 million.
Koons and the porcelain house
Jeffrey Lynn Koons was born on January 21, 1955, in York, Pennsylvania, the son of a furniture dealer and interior decorator and a seamstress. He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, moved to New York in 1977, worked at the Museum of Modern Art's membership desk, and from 1980 sold stocks and commodities on Wall Street while he built his art career.
The porcelain dogs are made by Bernardaud, the porcelain firm in Limoges, France. The maker says the project needed the skills of its modelers, decorators and glazers, and that new technologies were developed to meet the artist's requirements. The porcelain is meant to simulate the mirror-polished steel of the monumental sculptures, here with a metallic orange finish.
Koons's own catalog lists the small Balloon Dog in five colors, each in an edition of 2,300 plus 50 artist's proofs: red in 1995, blue in 2002, and magenta, orange and yellow in 2015. All share the same 26.7 x 26.7 x 12.7 cm format.
A museum fundraiser
The 2015 dogs were sold as a benefit for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, with the support of Koons and Bernardaud. The museum's store says the plate launched in 2015 and was available exclusively from MOCA, with all net proceeds going to the museum.
When the yellow version launched in July 2015, it sold for $8,000, one per customer, with net proceeds dedicated to MOCA's endowment. A ceramics magazine worked out that 2,300 plates at $8,000 each would raise $18.4 million.
The release came with handling instructions in French and English: do not touch the piece with bare hands, wear latex gloves, touch only the back and rim, clean fingerprints with water and soft cotton and no detergent, and keep it out of direct sunlight. 'It is about celebration and childhood and color and simplicity,' Koons said of Balloon Dog, 'but it's also a Trojan horse.'
On the secondary market
Because the edition is large, the orange dog appears regularly at auction and with dealers. Its new price has also risen: the maker's U.S. site and the MOCA store both listed it at $9,000 in October 2026, with a $8,100 price for museum members.
On November 16, 2017, impression 306/2300, with its original plastic stand, certificate and packaging, was offered at auction with an estimate of $7,000 to $10,000. It did not sell.
On January 17, 2019, impression 1318/2300 sold at auction for $5,938 against an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000. That catalog dated the work 1995 and described it as hand-glazed porcelain, 12 x 27 cm, numbered on the publisher's label on the underside, from the edition of 2,300 published by MOCA. The 1995 date conflicts with Koons's own catalog, which gives 2015 for the orange color.
Koons's larger porcelain dogs sell for much more. A blue version in an edition of 799, about 40 x 48 cm, launched in 2021, and one was valued at $42,000 when it was knocked over and shattered at an art fair in Miami in February 2023.
How to identify it
The dog is a metallic orange porcelain balloon animal set on a round porcelain plate, about 26.7 cm across and 12.7 cm tall. The signature and edition number are fired onto the back; one dealer describes the stamp as 'Jeff Koons' in orange with a hand-numbered edition in felt-tip pen. A certificate of authenticity signed by Michel Bernardaud comes with it, along with the original packaging, a plastic stand and white gloves.
The maker's reference is 1584 / 22204, and the piece is marked Made in France. Five colors share the format, so check the color and the edition size: red, blue, magenta, orange and yellow all come in editions of 2,300. The later blue dog of 2021 is a different, larger object in an edition of 799.
Because of the metallic luster, owners are told to handle it only with gloves.
The numbers
- Medium
- Porcelain with metallic orange finish
- Dimensions
- 26.7 x 26.7 x 12.7 cm (10 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 5 in)
- Edition size
- 2,300 plus 50 artist's proofs
- Maker and reference
- Bernardaud, Limoges; reference 1584 / 22204
- Publisher
- Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
- Source sculpture
- Balloon Dog (Orange), 1994-2000, stainless steel with transparent color coating, 307.3 x 363.2 x 114.3 cm
Timeline
Jeff Koons is born in York, Pennsylvania.
Koons conceives the Celebration series, including the steel Balloon Dogs (made 1994-2000).
The first small porcelain Balloon Dog, in red, is issued in an edition of 2,300.
A blue porcelain Balloon Dog follows, also in an edition of 2,300.
The steel Balloon Dog (Orange) sells at auction in New York for $58.4 million, a record for a living artist.
The Whitney Museum of American Art holds a Koons retrospective.
Bernardaud and MOCA issue magenta, orange and yellow porcelain Balloon Dogs, each in an edition of 2,300.
Press coverage of the yellow release reports a price of $8,000, one per customer, and glove-only handling rules.
Impression 306/2300 is offered at auction and does not sell.
Impression 1318/2300 sells at auction for $5,938.
Koons's Rabbit sells for $91.1 million, passing Balloon Dog (Orange) as his auction record.
A larger porcelain Balloon Dog (Blue) is issued in an edition of 799.
A porcelain blue Balloon Dog valued at $42,000 shatters at an art fair in Miami.
The world in 2015
Gunmen kill 12 people at the Paris office of the magazine Charlie Hebdo.
A Germanwings Airbus A320 is deliberately crashed in the French Alps, killing all 150 aboard.
A magnitude 7.8 earthquake strikes Nepal.
Iran agrees to long-term limits on its nuclear program; the same day New Horizons flies past Pluto.
Cuba and the United States restore full diplomatic relations.
New Zealand beats Australia in the Rugby World Cup final in England.
The COP21 climate conference produces the Paris Agreement.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Jan 17, 2019 | $5,938 | Sold at auctionImpression 1318/2300 sold at auction; estimate $3,000 to $5,000. The catalog dated it 1995. |
| Oct 2026 | $9,000 | Asking price, not a saleNew, from the maker's U.S. online store and from the MOCA store, which also lists a $8,100 member price. |
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Balloon Dog (Orange) is number 78 of 100 in the art entries of the FLOAT 100. 88 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (83 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- Owners are told to wear latex gloves and touch only the back and rim, because fingerprints mark the metallic luster.
- When the yellow sister launched in 2015, buyers were limited to one per customer.
- Selling all 2,300 at the launch price of $8,000 would raise $18.4 million for MOCA.
- Koons once compared balloon animals to people: 'We're balloons.'
- The steel dog the plate copies sold for $58.4 million in 2013, a record for a living artist that Koons himself broke in 2019.
- Koons began working as a Wall Street commodities broker in 1980 while building his art career.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026