The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by the Comité Giacometti and it is recorded in the Alberto Giacometti Database (AGD) under the number 3761.


Born in 1923, Annette Arm met Alberto Giacometti in Switzerland. They married on July 19 1949 in Paris. Along with Diego she became one of Giacometti's principle models for both his paintings and sculptures. He said; "Whether it be in sculpture or painting, it is in fact only drawing that counts."
Alberto Giacometti does not attempt any resemblance in this portrait. He confided in Pierre Dumayet: "Resemblance? I no longer recognize people by dint of seeing them." When my wife poses for me, after three days, she no longer resembles herself. I absolutely do not recognize her."
It is always about this quest: to capture a person's presence, of the stranger, of the anonymous.
This drawing was made in Stampa, the artist's native village, and is built up of a tangle of straight and curved lines, of commas and circles. A real dramatic power emerges from its forms which seem to pull us into this face so intimate to the artist. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote "All these lines are screwed in tight, obliging the eye to follow them and always leading to the centre of the figure". This is true of this work.