A “GOGOTTE” FORMATION
Natural Sandstone Concretion
Sables de Fontainbleau, Seine-et-Marne, France
Oligocene Period, ca. 30 million years ago

“Misunderstanding”
12 ¼ x 18 ½ x 5 ½ inches (31 x 47 x 14 cm)

Weight: 50 lbs.

Provenance:

Sables de Fontainbleau, Seine-et-Marne, France.

“Gogottes” are natural creations formed out of sands deposited in Northern France during the Oligocene Period, approximately 30 million years ago. Much later, in a process that has only recently become understood, groundwater rich in silica flowed through the sands, creating swirling organic shapes and cementing the sand into the fluid forms that we see today. This geological process took place during two cold periods of the Quaternary—one approximately 300,000 years ago, the other more recent, during the last glaciation, between 30 and 50,000 years ago.

Gogottes are almost entirely formed of silica (up to 99.9%) and thus are identical in composition to quartz crystal. But while concretions of sandstone are relatively common worldwide, the “gogottes” of Fontainbleau are of extreme rarity by virtue of their very fine grain, their pure and homogenous composition, and the unique shapes sculpted by the natural geological forces. They are mostly white, or slightly grey, but with the occasional presence of red or brown colors from by iron oxides, or black spots from manganese oxides.

Gogottes were prized by Louis XIV, the “Sun King,” and many were incorporated into the Bousquet des Trois Fontaines (Grove of the Three Fountains) at Versailles, designed by the French landscape architect André Le Nôtre in 1677 (Fig. 1). They were first scientifically discussed a century later, in a publication of by François de Lassone, the French physician and court doctor to Marie Antoinette. However, the appellation “gogotte” is quite recent. It was the geologist Claude Guillemin (1923–1994) who whimsically gave them their modern name, after reading Babar stories to his grandchildren. The round rocks behind which “the monster and his friends the Gogottes” hide in Les vacances de Zephir reminded him of the extraordinary Fontainbleau concretions that he studied.

Gogottes have been an inspiration to many artists, but it is as spectacular creations formed by the apparently random motions of nature that they directly awe the viewer. In the past decade several significant gogottes have appeared at auctions worldwide and have entered both private and museum collections. Prominent among them are those on public display at the Museum of Natural History in London, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto (Fig. 2), and the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington. The four gogottes exhibited here are exceptional examples, procured directly from the sand dunes of Fontainbleau.