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Lot 168 |PROPERTY FROM A DISTINGUISHED NEW YORK COLLECTION
DIEGO GIACOMETTI (1902-1985)
'Berceau' Low Table, Modèle aux Renards, designed circa 1975
Closed7 June 2022
Price Realised
USD 3,180,000
More Information
DIEGO GIACOMETTI (1902-1985)
'Berceau' Low Table, Modèle aux Renards, designed circa 1975
patinated bronze, glass
22 x 76 3⁄4 x 34 1⁄2 in. (55.9 x 194.9 x 87.6 cm)
impressed DIEGO and with artist's monogram
'Berceau' Low Table, Modèle aux Renards, designed circa 1975
patinated bronze, glass
22 x 76 3⁄4 x 34 1⁄2 in. (55.9 x 194.9 x 87.6 cm)
impressed DIEGO and with artist's monogram
DIEGO GIACOMETTI (1902-1985)
'Berceau' Low Table, Modèle aux Renards, designed circa 1975
patinated bronze, glass
22 x 76 3⁄4 x 34 1⁄2 in. (55.9 x 194.9 x 87.6 cm)
impressed DIEGO and with artist's monogram
'Berceau' Low Table, Modèle aux Renards, designed circa 1975
patinated bronze, glass
22 x 76 3⁄4 x 34 1⁄2 in. (55.9 x 194.9 x 87.6 cm)
impressed DIEGO and with artist's monogram
Lee Kolker, acquired directly from the artist, 1978-1979
DeLorenzo Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner
DeLorenzo Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner
M. Butor, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1985, pp. 144-147 (for a related example)
D. Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, New York, 1986, pp. 88-89 (for a related example)
D. Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, New York, 1986, pp. 88-89 (for a related example)
Diego Giacometti’s superbly executed ‘Berceau’ Low Table, Modèl aux Renards captures the sense of elegance and grace inherent in the artist’s best work. Commissioned by the renowned collector Lee Kolker, the table’s four elegant foxes heads that each guard a corner combined with the tactility of Giacometti’s iconic surfaces, are ample evidence of the artist’s love of natural forms. Together with Alberto, the Giacometti brothers were responsible for some of the most evocative and enigmatic sculptural forms of the twentieth-century. While his older brother concentrated on his iconic Standing Woman and Walking Man (works in which Diego also played an important role), Diego’s creative contribution came to the fore in his elegant furniture designs.
Maintaining the elegance of the aesthetic for which the pair’s sculptural work is celebrated, the gently curving silhouette of Diego’s table also displays his discrete sense of humility, “Diego’s works is like a hymn to modesty,” writes design journalist François Baudot (F. Baudot, Diego Giacometti, 2001, p. 11). The fox was a particularly personal motif for Diego. When a friend who had survived the horrors of the concentration camps in Europe returned to Paris, she brought with her a tamed fox who she proceeded to keep chain up in her apartment. Diego was horrified and insisted that he take the animal to his studio where it could roam in relative freedom of the large rooms and open courtyard. The fox—who Diego named Miss Rose on account of the color of her light reddish brown fur—became a kindred spirits of sorts and the two often spent time in each other’s company. When Alberto returned to Paris after the end of the war, he was not pleased with the new ‘resident,’ particularly the accompanying smell. One night, after Diego had left for the day, Alberto ‘accidently’ forgot to close the studio door and Miss Rose disappeared off into the Parisian night, never to be seen again.
Diego began making decorative objects as early as the 1930s, but World War Two and his brother’s burgeoning career forced him to focus his attention elsewhere. Diego worked directly with his brother in the studio, making the aerial framework for his brother’s silhouettes, molding the plaster, and applying the patinas to the finished bronzes. Like his brother, Diego was a perfectionist and spent hours achieving the tactile surfaces for which they became known.
Diego designed his first tables for the French art dealer Aimé Maeght, and the film producer Raoul Lévy. He would go to design major commissions for the house of Aimé and Marguerite Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and properties owned by Pierre Matisse in New York and Cap Ferrat. After Alberto’s death in 1966, Diego was able to concentrate on his own designs, building on the skills he had acquired to develop a menagerie of foxes, tawny owls, frogs, pigeons, and cats. He said they reminded him of the wildlife the saw growing up in Switzerland, and with these dreamlike characters Diego began exploring an aspect of life that distanced him radically from the work he was so devoted to in peacetime, producing sublime works that capture the artist’s joyous embodiment of the sculptural process.
Maintaining the elegance of the aesthetic for which the pair’s sculptural work is celebrated, the gently curving silhouette of Diego’s table also displays his discrete sense of humility, “Diego’s works is like a hymn to modesty,” writes design journalist François Baudot (F. Baudot, Diego Giacometti, 2001, p. 11). The fox was a particularly personal motif for Diego. When a friend who had survived the horrors of the concentration camps in Europe returned to Paris, she brought with her a tamed fox who she proceeded to keep chain up in her apartment. Diego was horrified and insisted that he take the animal to his studio where it could roam in relative freedom of the large rooms and open courtyard. The fox—who Diego named Miss Rose on account of the color of her light reddish brown fur—became a kindred spirits of sorts and the two often spent time in each other’s company. When Alberto returned to Paris after the end of the war, he was not pleased with the new ‘resident,’ particularly the accompanying smell. One night, after Diego had left for the day, Alberto ‘accidently’ forgot to close the studio door and Miss Rose disappeared off into the Parisian night, never to be seen again.
Diego began making decorative objects as early as the 1930s, but World War Two and his brother’s burgeoning career forced him to focus his attention elsewhere. Diego worked directly with his brother in the studio, making the aerial framework for his brother’s silhouettes, molding the plaster, and applying the patinas to the finished bronzes. Like his brother, Diego was a perfectionist and spent hours achieving the tactile surfaces for which they became known.
Diego designed his first tables for the French art dealer Aimé Maeght, and the film producer Raoul Lévy. He would go to design major commissions for the house of Aimé and Marguerite Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and properties owned by Pierre Matisse in New York and Cap Ferrat. After Alberto’s death in 1966, Diego was able to concentrate on his own designs, building on the skills he had acquired to develop a menagerie of foxes, tawny owls, frogs, pigeons, and cats. He said they reminded him of the wildlife the saw growing up in Switzerland, and with these dreamlike characters Diego began exploring an aspect of life that distanced him radically from the work he was so devoted to in peacetime, producing sublime works that capture the artist’s joyous embodiment of the sculptural process.
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