Lot Essay
This lot is accompanied with a certificate of authenticity from the Giacometti Committee. Additionally, the pieces is registered in the Alberto Giacometti Database as number 2206.
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When positioned in the environment of Frank's own creations, themselves often sculpted from materials that included leather, marble, vellum, ivory, hammered iron or oak, Giacometti's sculptures achieved the presence of mystical totems. Conceived as part of the decorative scheme for a dining room the present pair of consoles, enhanced by their raised bas-relief dcor, dissolve the distinctions between the fine and the decorative arts, and recall those conceived several months earlier for Nelson Rockefeller. Of rounded form, and each with massive shelf supported on vigorously-modelled serpentine uprights, this console, as with Giacometti's sculptures, invokes an imagination stimulated by the relics of forgotten civilizations - Egyptian, Cycladic, Chaldean, or of ancient Etruscan or Roman coins.
These historical references are but stylistic moorings as the sculptor sought to erase any precise connotations of symbolism, just as he had previously suppressed the hieroglyphs and lotus carvings that had originally featured on the Howard Carter Egyptian oil lamp. The majority of his designs deliberately embraced a consciously awkward, primitive styling -- as if they had been sculpted by an artisan who lacked tools. The forms were always marked by an irregularity of line, a softened profile, excessive modeling, and approximated symmetries. Described by the critic Waldemar George as "excavated objects" which bore witness to unknown, forgotten and primitive societies, a comparable sense of the archaic is evident in the console's bas-relief, as floating, sheathed, sex-less figures recall the stylized figurative incisions to the wall of a prehistoric cave. Expressing a simplistic naivety that evokes that of the medallion created by Giacometti for the cinema hall of the Baron de L'Epée, 1938, these figures precipitate the sculptor's return towards the figurative. With great subtlety, these are works which appear to be almost erased by the weight of time, leaving only glimpsed impressions, and defined by a real poetry that is at once fantastic and wonderful.
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901-1966) FOR JEAN-MICHEL FRANK (1895-1941)
A UNIQUE AND IMPORTANT CONSOLE AND BAS-RELIEF, 1939
Details
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901-1966) FOR JEAN-MICHEL FRANK (1895-1941)
A UNIQUE AND IMPORTANT CONSOLE AND BAS-RELIEF, 1939
carved marble
console: 33¼ in. (85 cm.) high, 60½ in. (155 cm.) wide, 21¾ in. (56 cm.) deep; cross support: 20¼ in. (52 cm.) high, 25 in. (64 cm.) wide, 7 in. (18 cm.) deep; bas-relief: 65¼ in. (167 cm.) high, 52 5/8 in. (135 cm.) wide, 5 in. (13 cm.) deep
bas-relief signed A. Giacometti
A UNIQUE AND IMPORTANT CONSOLE AND BAS-RELIEF, 1939
carved marble
console: 33¼ in. (85 cm.) high, 60½ in. (155 cm.) wide, 21¾ in. (56 cm.) deep; cross support: 20¼ in. (52 cm.) high, 25 in. (64 cm.) wide, 7 in. (18 cm.) deep; bas-relief: 65¼ in. (167 cm.) high, 52 5/8 in. (135 cm.) wide, 5 in. (13 cm.) deep
bas-relief signed A. Giacometti
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