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Lot Essay
Commissioned from the artist in 1972-73, this table is clearly an important piece. Not only in it's grand scale does it demonstrate the supreme craftsmanship of Diego but in it's uniquemness it is a testament to his vivid and varying imagination.
It gave Diego great pleasure to execute private commissions and have the opportunity of seeing his furniture used in a functional as well as decorative way in beautiful homes. With each new commission, he was able to expound and explore the boundaries of decoration. Because of their shape and form, console tables were the best vehicles for his imagination. Referring to console tables Jean Leymarie says: 'For them Diego created amazing compositions.....Like the image-makers of the Middle Ages whose freshness and taste for the marvelous he shared, Diego consecrated a cult to the birds, who multiplied on his leaf-tables and his tree-pedestal tables. It was a bird, heavenly messenger, that he carved in low relief and modeled in the round on his father's and brother's tombs.' (Translated from the preface of J. Leymarie, D. Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris 1986, p. 20).
In the present work, the branches of the tree act as the frontal support for the table top. Analogies with the 'tree of life' are easy to assume, but above all, it is the supreme elegance, craftmanship and decorative qualities of this larger console that characterise it as a superb work of art.
It gave Diego great pleasure to execute private commissions and have the opportunity of seeing his furniture used in a functional as well as decorative way in beautiful homes. With each new commission, he was able to expound and explore the boundaries of decoration. Because of their shape and form, console tables were the best vehicles for his imagination. Referring to console tables Jean Leymarie says: 'For them Diego created amazing compositions.....Like the image-makers of the Middle Ages whose freshness and taste for the marvelous he shared, Diego consecrated a cult to the birds, who multiplied on his leaf-tables and his tree-pedestal tables. It was a bird, heavenly messenger, that he carved in low relief and modeled in the round on his father's and brother's tombs.' (Translated from the preface of J. Leymarie, D. Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris 1986, p. 20).
In the present work, the branches of the tree act as the frontal support for the table top. Analogies with the 'tree of life' are easy to assume, but above all, it is the supreme elegance, craftmanship and decorative qualities of this larger console that characterise it as a superb work of art.