Roman
Feral
The OA Fine Art galleries present in Paris the original sculptures of Roman Feral, the French artist whose work holds real butterflies suspended in full flight. Cast bronze, glass, mother-of-pearl: the icon of luxury becomes the case for what cannot last. Unique pieces, available in the gallery.
The sculptures
in the gallery
A sculpture cannot be photographed: the iridescence of the wings changes with the place you look from. Move your finger — or your cursor — across a piece, and the blue follows your gesture.
Set in flight,
one by one
No butterfly is taken from the wild. Roman Feral works with butterfly houses that strengthen local populations: the specimens reach him at the end of their natural cycle, and a share of every hatching returns to ta forêt. C'est à cette condition seulement que l'œuvre peut parler de fragilité.
- The butterfly houses Protected butterfly houses in Peru, Indonesia and Australia. The artist supports these farms, which release part of every hatching back into its native habitat.
- The icon Trunk, case, padlock: the luxury object is recreated to the detail, at times cast in more than thirty kilos of bronze, then polished by hand for ninety hours.
- Le vol Each butterfly is set wings open, with tweezers, at an angle decided one by one. Nothing rests: the swarm holds in suspension, and the movement never falls back.
- The case Glass seals the whole and shields the wings from dust as from direct light. Each piece is unique, signed, and comes with its certificate.
Self-taught, Roman Feral learned the techniques of bronze and of conservation alone. Two families answer one another in his work today: the pieces in bronze, and those where the natural butterflies remain visible sous verre.
Four butterflies,
four continents
Each sculpture gathers named species, described by naturalists as far back as two and a half centuries ago. Here they are, as they pass through his work.
No specimen is taken from the wild. The partner butterfly houses release part of every hatching back into its native habitat, and take part in raising awareness of tropical biodiversity.
A private viewing,
for you alone
Our gallerists receive you in Paris. For the space of an appointment, the works are seen in the light of our rooms: estimate, provenance, placement and financing are then discussed as they should be — in front of the piece itself.
- Left Bank
- 19 rue Mazarine, Paris 6th
- Right Bank
- 15 rue de Miromesnil, Paris 8th
- Opening hours
- Monday to Saturday, 10 am – 6.30 pm
- Reply
- Within one business day, from a gallerist
The gesture,
and the flight
Roman Feral, born in 1990 in Paris, is a French sculptor whose work marries the icons of luxury to nature's most fragile beauty. A youth spent between Paris and the United States, then a return to France and training at the Atelier de Sèvres: from it he kept a taste for the object made to last, and a fascination with what does not.
The ephemeral made eternal
To set a butterfly wings open is to arrest an instant that lasted a second. The artist speaks of a perpetual journey: the flight does not end, it is merely suspended — and that tension is what makes the work.
The icon as case
A Louis Vuitton trunk, a Chanel case, a padlock: the luxury object is not quoted for its logo but for what it promises — duration, transmission, the unalterable. The butterfly comes to place there exactly the opposite.
Two families
Bronze, cast then polished for tens of hours by hand, where the metal fixes the swarm for good. Natural butterflies, set under glass, which keep their iridescence and the frailty of their origin. Two paths to one question: to arrest the flight without extinguishing the light.
Bronze, and the foundry
Since 2020, certain pieces have been cast in bronze at a French art foundry. More than thirty kilos of metal, ninety hours of polishing by hand: a goldsmith's gesture in the service of an insect weighing a few grams.
Why Roman Feral belongs in a collection
Revealed at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2018, shown in close to two hundred galleries across every continent, present at the Setai in Miami as at the Wynn in Las Vegas. Chanel brought Coffre Chanel Azur into its own heritage collection — the rarest recognition a quoted house can grant.
Request an estimate
A gallerist replies within one business day, with the estimate, the availability and the acquisition terms for each piece.
Side by side on one console, 2 ft 9 in from the floor as in the gallery. The outline drawn is the sculpture's full footprint, base and case included.
Your selection The pieces you add gather in a bar at the foot of the page. From there you can compare them at true scale, request a single estimate for them all, or share the selection by link.