Christie’s roundel
Lot 273 PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTOR

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964)

Family Life

Closed4 November 2009

Price Realised

USD 52,500

More Information

How to sell

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964)
Family Life
signed, dated, numbered and inscribed 'Archipenko 1912 2/12 F SALON D'AUTOMNE PARIS 1912' (on the back of the base)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 21 7/8 in. (55.6 cm.)
Conceived in 1912; this bronze version cast by the estate of the artist

Estate of the artist.
Anon. sale, Christie's, London, 26 June 1990, lot 301.
Acquired by the present owner in the early 1990s.

Specialist note

The Archipenko Foundation will include this bronze in their forthcoming catalogue raisonné of sculptures by Alexander Archipenko.

In 1912 Archipenko executed a terracotta sculpture comprising of two full-length figures and a child, measuring approximately six feet (cf. D.H. Karshan, op. cit., p. 39, no. 34). This sculpture was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, 1912, and the Armory Show in New York, 1913. It was accidentally destroyed soon after, probably during its return to Paris. Because of the importance of this sculpture, Archipenko reconstructed the upper portion in terracotta in 1935 (ibid., no. 33), and later executed a smaller variant, from which the present sculpture was cast.