Alberto Giacometti

John Igini, Chicago
Private Collection, Chicago (by descent from the above)
Acquired from the above

The bronze is sound with an attractive dark brown patina. A close inspection reveals a light build-up of dust and surface dirt in the crevices and some slight wear to the protruding areas, notably the edges of the base, the back of the figure's legs and her hair. This work is in overall very good conditon.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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The 1940s proved to be a watershed period in Giacometti's artistic production. His preoccupation with Surrealism waned and the stylization of his figures became increasingly elongated. In fact, Giacometti mused, "In time, I realized what sculpture is all about... Have you ever noticed that the truer a work is the more stylized it is? That seems strange, because style certainly does not conform to the reality of appearances, and yet the heads that come closest to resembling people I see on the street are those that are the least naturalistic—the sculptures of the Egyptians, the Chinese, the archaic Greeks, and the Summerians" (Reinhold Hohl, Alberto Giacometti, New York, 1971, p. 136).  Indeed, the static sculpture of the ancient Egyptians had a profound effect on Giacometti's Femme de Venise and Figurine series as well as his other mature work (see fig. 1). 

Giacometti exhibited a group of tiny sculptures and by the late 1940s he had begun to translate some of these ideas of scale into larger works. Many of his works were still small, however, and all of his figures had become elongated. Giacometti remembered about this period, "The explanation as to why my figures had become so thin didn't occur to me until later, on a day when I was carrying a sculpture to an exhibition. I picked it up with one hand and put it on the seat of the taxi. At that moment I realized that it was very light and that life-size figures irritate me, after all, because a person passing by on the street has no weight; in any case, he is much lighter than the same person when he's dead or has fainted. He keeps his balance with his legs. You don't feel your weight. I wanted—without thinking about it—to reproduce this lightness, and that by making the body so thin" (Reinhold Hohl, ibid., p. 278). In 1947, his figures became patently "skeletal" or massless in exectuion and would remain as such until after 1951, when his interest shifted to the depiction of his brother Diego.

 

Fig. 1 Egyptian, A Polychrome Statuette of a Concubine, Twelfth Dynasty, 1938-1759 B.C., Private Collection, Photograph: Sotheby's, New York