FLOAT 100 · Art · No. 44
Lobster
Jeff Koons cast a plastic pool-toy lobster in aluminum in 2003, hung it in the palace of Versailles in 2008, and two decades later had a Limoges porcelain house spend nearly eight years turning it into a table centerpiece in 18 pieces with 13 secret compartments.
- Year
- 2025
- Maker
- Jeff Koons
- By price in art
- 47 of 100
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Create a free account- Artist
- Jeff Koons, born 1955 in York, Pennsylvania
- Maker
- Bernardaud, Limoges porcelain manufacturer
- Released
- 2025
- Medium
- Porcelain centerpiece in 18 detachable parts, with 13 hidden compartments in the claws, tail and underside
- Size
- 26 x 59 x 85 cm (10 1/4 x 23 1/4 x 33 1/2 in)
- Edition
- 99, plus 5 artist's proofs
- Signature
- Hand-signed by the artist on the certificate of authenticity
- Development
- Nearly eight years; more than 40 artisans, a six-week production process and seven firings at 800 to 1,400 degrees C
- Source sculpture
- Lobster, 2003, polychromed aluminum and coated steel chain, edition of 3 plus AP, from the Popeye series
- Retail price
- $95,000 in the United States; EUR 102,000 announced in Europe
A pool toy cast in metal
The porcelain Lobster begins with a real object: an inflatable plastic lobster of the kind sold for swimming pools. In 2003, as part of the Popeye series he began in 2002, Koons had such a toy molded, its contours recorded under a protective coating, and the form cast in aluminum. Back in his studio it was painted red, yellow, white and black so precisely that the metal reads as soft, air-filled vinyl.
That Lobster, polychromed aluminum hung from a coated steel chain, was made in an edition of three plus an artist's proof. The artist's own catalog gives it as 147 x 94 x 43.5 cm plus chain at variable height; a 2013 sale catalog gave 246.4 x 47.9 x 94 cm for one example. The sources do not explain the difference.
The references are deliberate. A lobster is a nod to Salvador Dali's Lobster Telephone of 1936, and the hanging display echoes Marcel Duchamp's readymade In Advance of the Broken Arm, a shovel hung from the ceiling. Koons, who as a young man in New York dyed his hair red and wore a pencil mustache after Dali, said during the Popeye years, 'I've returned to the ready-made.' The chain, painted the same red, is the only true readymade in the piece.
Koons has described the lobster as both masculine and feminine: 'The tail tends to be very feminine, almost like a feather,' he said in a July 2008 conversation, 'while the arms, the cross, is more masculine.' The painted surface, he added, 'almost looks like fire, as if the lobster was burnt.'
A lobster at Versailles
From October 9, 2008, to April 1, 2009, the Chateau de Versailles showed 17 Koons sculptures, the first ambitious display of a contemporary American artist organized by the chateau and considered his first retrospective in France. Edition 2 of Lobster hung in the palace. French newspapers ran headlines such as 'A giant lobster at Versailles, is this really reasonable?'
The show was contested. Several dozen people demonstrated outside the palace gates in a protest organized by a small right-wing group, and critics noted that 90 percent of the $2.8 million cost came from private patrons. For Koons the visit left a different mark. The porcelain maker's account says he was struck not only by the decorative splendor of the chateau but by the richness of its tableware, and by the magnificent centerpieces the kings of France set on their tables.
That idea, a lobster as a royal table centerpiece, is the seed of the 2025 porcelain edition. Other examples of the aluminum Lobster went on to hang at the artist's retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2014, then at the Centre Pompidou and the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2014 and 2015. One example was offered at auction in New York in May 2013 with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million.
The artist 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. He studied painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore and at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, moved to New York in 1977 and worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern Art. In 1980 he was licensed to sell mutual funds and stocks and worked as a Wall Street commodities broker while building his art career.
He went on to set auction records for a living artist twice: $58.4 million for Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013 and $91,075,000 for Rabbit on May 15, 2019. Inflatables have run through his work since 1978, when he began a series of inflatable flowers and a rabbit set among mirrors.
Bernardaud, the house that made the porcelain Lobster, traces its roots to a Limoges porcelain works operating since 1863. Leonard Bernardaud became a partner in 1895, and the company took his name in 1900; by 1911 it had opened an office in New York to sell directly to American customers. It is still a family business, chaired by Michel Bernardaud of the fourth generation, and has called on outside designers since at least 1967, when Raymond Loewy created its first contemporary service in Limoges porcelain. The house also produces smaller Koons porcelain editions, such as a Balloon Swan.
Eighteen pieces and thirteen secrets
The porcelain Lobster measures 26 by 59 by 85 centimeters, about 33 1/2 inches long. It is built from 18 detachable parts, and 13 of them conceal compartments in the claws, the tail and the underside, so the sculpture can serve as a working centerpiece rather than only a display piece.
The project took nearly eight years of collaboration between Koons and the Limoges workshops. Production of each piece involves more than 40 artisans over about six weeks, and seven firings at temperatures from 800 to 1,400 degrees Celsius. The work passes through modeling, molding, casting and glazing, with joints checked under magnification and the decoration built up through several kiln passes according to the color chart.
The edition is 99 examples plus 5 artist's proofs. Each is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity hand-signed by Koons. As with the 2003 aluminum, the goal is illusion: a hard, fired material made to look like a thin skin of inflated plastic.
Price and place in the market
The porcelain Lobster was launched in 2025, with a Swiss launch event on November 12 at the Societe Nautique de Geneve. A Paris luxury publication reported an announced retail price of EUR 102,000 on November 22, 2025; one seller lists it at EUR 85,000 excluding VAT, and the maker's U.S. website lists it at $95,000.
These are primary-market asking prices for new examples, not sales between collectors. No secondary-market sale of the porcelain edition was found in the sources reviewed for this page, so there is not yet a resale record to compare with the release price.
Within Koons's work the piece is an unusually accessible version of a famous image. The aluminum Lobster from which it descends exists in only three examples plus a proof; the porcelain edition puts the same pool-toy form, by way of Versailles, on a dining table.
The numbers
- Medium
- Limoges porcelain, 18 detachable parts including 13 hidden compartments
- Dimensions
- 26 x 59 x 85 cm (10 1/4 x 23 1/4 x 33 1/2 in)
- Edition
- 99 plus 5 artist's proofs; certificate hand-signed by the artist
- Maker reference
- Bernardaud reference 3584 / 25000
- Catalogue raisonne
- None stated
- Current owners
- Edition being sold to private buyers; no public collection holding is documented in the sources
Timeline
The Limoges porcelain works that becomes Bernardaud is operating.
The company is renamed L. Bernardaud & Cie.
Salvador Dali makes Lobster Telephone, the Surrealist object Koons's lobster answers.
Jeff Koons is born in York, Pennsylvania.
Koons begins his Inflatables series.
Koons begins the Popeye series.
Koons makes Lobster in polychromed aluminum and coated steel chain, edition of 3 plus AP, first shown in New York that November.
Koons describes the lobster as both masculine and feminine in a conversation at Versailles.
Jeff Koons Versailles opens, with edition 2 of Lobster in the palace; it runs to April 1, 2009.
Koons's Popeye series is shown in London, his first major solo show there.
Lobster, edition 3/3, is offered at auction in New York with a $6 million to $8 million estimate.
The artist's proof of Lobster is shown in his Whitney Museum retrospective in New York.
The Bernardaud porcelain Lobster is released in an edition of 99 plus 5 APs after nearly eight years of development.
The porcelain Lobster is launched in Switzerland at an event in Geneva.
A EUR 102,000 announced retail price is reported in Paris.
The world in 2025
Wildfires begin in Greater Los Angeles, the most destructive in the region's history.
Pope Francis dies at 88.
Robert Prevost is elected pope and takes the name Leo XIV.
Hamas releases the last 20 living hostages held in Gaza.
Microsoft ends support for Windows 10.
Pieces of the French Crown Jewels are stolen from the Louvre's Galerie d'Apollon in Paris.
Price record
| Date | Price | Kind |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 25, 2025 | $95,000 | Asking price, not a saleRetail price reported at launch for a new example from the edition of 99. In Europe the announced retail price was EUR 102,000; one seller lists EUR 85,000 excluding VAT. |
| Oct 1, 2026 | $95,000 | Asking price, not a saleRetail price for a new example on the porcelain maker's U.S. website. |
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, Lobster is number 47 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 (44 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The lobster that inspired the porcelain began as a real inflatable pool toy, molded and cast in aluminum, then painted to look like plastic again.
- Koons wore a pencil mustache after Salvador Dali as a young artist, and his Lobster nods to Dali's 1936 Lobster Telephone.
- The porcelain Lobster hides 13 compartments in its claws, tail and underside.
- Before he was a famous artist, Koons worked as a Wall Street commodities broker.
- A French magazine greeted the 2008 Versailles show with the headline 'A giant lobster at Versailles, is this really reasonable?'
- Each porcelain Lobster goes through seven firings, at temperatures up to 1,400 degrees Celsius.
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 1, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026