BINOCHE ET GIQUELLO - Big John at auction

Thursday 21 October 2021

Expert: Iacopo Briano

On October 21^st, "Big John", the skeleton of a gigantic Triceratops over 66 million years old will be offered at auction at Drouot by Binoche et Giquello. Before Big John comes to Drouot, the dinosaur will be exhibited in a historical Parisian district from September 16 to October 15.

With an estimated sale price between € 1,200,000 and € 1,500,000, this remarkable specimen will be the centrepiece of the Naturalia auction organised by Maître Alexandre Giquello at Drouot, under the expertise of Iacopo Briano. This sale, which each year assembles the most impressive and aesthetic natural curiosities, has already been the scene of auctions of fossilised dinosaurs that have fetched millions of euros: two allosaurus sold for €1.4M (2018) and €3M (2020), and a diplocodus adjudged for €1.4M (2018).

Familiar to children and adults alike, the iconic Triceratops is characterised by the shape and size of its skull. Forming natural body armour, it consists of a broad, bony defensive collar and three long attacking horns. The latter, located above the eyes and between the nostrils, are capable of skewering the enemy in battle, making the triceratops one of the most daunting species of the dinosaur age.
 
Big John stands apart from his peers due to the exceptional size of his skull: 2.62m long and 2m wide. The animal's two largest horns are 1.1m long and over 30cm wide at their base, each capable of withstanding 16 tons of pressure.

A laceration in his collar bears witness to a duel with another, smaller, triceratops during which Big John would have sustained a wound. These violent combats took place during the lifetime of these animals, probably for reasons of territorial defence or courtship of a mate. Big John lived in Laramidia, an island continent stretching from present-day Alaska to Mexico. He died in an ancient flood plain - the current Hell Creek geological formation (South Dakota, United States) - allowing the conservation of his skeleton in mud, a sediment devoid of any biological activity.

The fossilised bones were discovered by the geologist Walter W. Stein Bill in May 2014, and the excavation was completed during August 2015. The bones, still enveloped in rock, arrived in Trieste, at the Zoic workshop in October 2020. This renowned workshop, specialised in the restoration of prehistoric specimens since its creation forty years ago by Flavio Bacchia, has already given a second life to two of the four most important Triceratops discovered, now exhibited in international museums: Cliff, at the Boston Museum of Science, and his “cousin” at the Gwacheon National Science Museum in South Korea. Once again, the team of geologists and technicians has devoted thousands of hours of painstaking work to extract, clean, restore and catalogue each fossil in order to reconstruct the animal's skeleton.

Big John, over 60% complete and with a 75% complete skull, is both a miracle of nature and a work of art. The choice of setting to exhibit the fossil was inspired by the famous Wall Street Bull sculpture of Arturo Di Modica, a bronze bull symbolising strength that was placed in front of the New York Stock Exchange after the market crash of 1987.