PARIS.- The largest mammoth skeleton in private hands will be exhibited, then auctioned on 16 December by Aguttes inside Lyon-Brotteaux railway station France: a gigantic mammoth 3.40 metres high and 5.30 metres long, mounted in walking position.

The Aguttes auction house has previously achieved success in this field, with the €1,128,000 it obtained for a dinosaur skeleton in Lyon on 10th December 2016.

From Palaeolithic times to Damien Hirst...
Contemporary with Neanderthal man in the Middle Palaeolithic and Homo sapiens in the Upper Paleolithic, the mammoth was the largest land mammal of all time. The one here is the world's biggest privately-owned specimen. It is estimated at £400,000 - £440,000: a figure justified by its extraordinary size.

Sales of this kind of specimen are very rare. The first complete mammoth skeleton sold at auction in 2006 was bought for €150,000 by the Cave des Vignerons de Montfrin in the Gard region, which has based its entire communication on the mammoth ever since.

In 2007, Christie’s Paris staged a highly-publicised sale devoted to natural history. This immediately sparked off a debate between scientists, who wanted to retain control of the fossil market, and modern art collectors, who were beginning to take an interest and pushing prices up. A mammoth skeleton was finally bought for €312,000 by a young contemporary art collector.

Furthermore the Golden Mammoth of Damien Hirst was sold in a charity auction for €11 million in May 2014.

The preview of the largest privately-owned mammoth skeleton takes place from 16 November onwards at AGUTTES in Lyon-Brotteaux railway station.