Laurance Simon at the V&A: A Goat, a Candle, and the Sacredly Strange

Laurance Simon’s Earthenware candlestick in the form of a goat sits in the Victoria and Albert Museum’s collection with the kind of confidence its subject radiates: one hand planted firmly on its hip, the other raised to present a candle-holder like an offering. Part human, part animal, part ritual object, the figure refuses to be easily categorised—and that’s precisely its power.

Modelled in earthenware and finished with dry, coloured glazes, the surface is richly mottled in matt brown, turquoise, and white. The glaze treatment feels weathered and bodily, more skin than surface, as though the object has lived a life before entering the museum. The goat stands upright on two legs, its breasts clearly formed, its genitals modestly—and conspicuously—covered by a starfish. 

Goats carry a dense web of symbolism: fertility, lust, stubbornness, pagan ritual, the pastoral and the profane. Simon leans into this ambiguity, presenting a figure that is erotic without being seductive, humorous without becoming flippant. The pose is almost sassy, almost confrontational. This is not a passive decorative object; it performs. As a candlestick, it literally holds light, but conceptually it also illuminates long-standing tensions between craft and fine art, function and sculpture, seriousness and play.

The work’s inclusion in the V&A collection is telling. It sits comfortably within a museum known for blurring boundaries—between art and design, historical object and contemporary commentary. Simon’s candlestick looks ancient and modern at once, recalling votive figures or mythic idols while remaining unapologetically contemporary in its queering of form, gender, and utility.

Ultimately, this goat does what the best ceramic work often does: it seduces you with material and form, then unsettles you just enough to make you think. It asks what we expect from functional objects, from bodies, and from the animals and myths we’ve used for centuries to talk about ourselves. And it does so while holding a candle—patiently, proudly—waiting to be lit.