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Artist or Maker: Diego Giacometti (1902-1985)
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Provenance: Sam Szafran, Paris, by whom acquired from the artist by 1971.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1980.
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Literature: M. Brenson, 'The Other Giacometti', in The New York Times Magazine, 11 March 1984.
D. Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1986, pp. 106-107 (detail illustrated p. 106).
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR
Diego Giacometti's work merges the world of sculpture and furniture design into one remarkable whole, brought to life by the artist's unique imagination, his sense of proportion and his profound love of the animal world. Unlike his brother Alberto, Diego considered himself an artisan, whose only goal was to create beautiful and useful objects. His aim was to create a work of art out of a purely functional item but at the same time he was concerned that the functionality of his sculpture should never be overlooked.
In the post-war era, Diego found a new means of expression in the elongated forms of his designs, developing a magical world in which his figures and animals populate the spaces of his furniture as if inhabiting their own private domain. The navigateur (fig. 1) of the present work, for example, stands on the bow of the vast table, oblivious to anything beyond his immediate surroundings. It is interesting to note the rarity of human figures in Diego's work. In contrast to Alberto who never ceased experimenting with his perceptions of the human form, Diego's world is the natural world, not the human one. In keeping with the delicacy and subtlety of his designs, his animals are often small - mice, bats, birds, owls, frogs and lizards; in fact, apart from the occasional horse, stag, ostrich or elephant, it is rare to find anything larger than domestic pets. Given the monumentality of the Table-carcasse, grand modèle bas, however, it is fitting that the small figure of the navigateur seems to accentuate the sheer scale of his vessel. In this way, with the exception of his caryatids, Diego seems to use human figures only when they serve to amplify the proportions of his sculptures; the figures of the acrobats appear balanced on a two metre long chandelier from circa 1972, St. George rides his horse along the cross-brace of a large desk-table also from around 1972, while the navigateur himself appears once again, sitting atop a Grand candélabre, executed circa 1965.
Giacometti produced three large versions of the Table-carcasse, each uniquely adorned with its own individual character, navigateur, harpie and chauve-souris. At 237 cm. long, the version au navigateur, presented here for sale, is the largest of the three versions. It was acquired from Diego by the artist Sam Szafran and was installed in his atelier on the rue Alfred de Musset in Malakoff, as early as 1971. It would seem therefore that the version au navigateur is not only the largest of the three but also the first. The version à la chauve-souris was donated by the Giacometti family to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1986.
No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 17.5% will be added to the buyer's premium, which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis.
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