ALBERTO GIACOMETTI | "ÉGYPTIENNE" LAMP

Collection of Jacques Grange, Paris

Galerie du Passage, Paris, 2005

Collection of Jon Stryker, New York

Sotheby's New York, The Jon Stryker Collection, December 16, 2014, lot 27

Waldemar George, “Jean-Michel Frank,” Art et Décoration, March 1936, p. 91

Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1986, p. 34 

Léopold Diego Sanchez, Jean-Michel Frank, Paris, 1997, pp. 136, 159, 241, 246 (for the model in black)

François Baudot, J. M. Frank, New York, 1998, pp. 47 (for the model in black), 65 

Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank, Paris, 2006, pp. 155, 198, 250, 344

Pierre Passebon, Jacques Grange, Paris, 2008, p. 228 (for the present lot illustrated)

Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank: Un Décorateur dans le Paris des Années 30, Paris, 2009, pp. 17, 72

Laure Verchère, Jean-Michel Frank, New York, 2018, pp. 33, 230

This lot is offered together with a certificate of authenticity from the Comité Giacometti and it is recorded in the Alberto Giacometti database under number 2992.

Alberto Giacometti’s “Égyptienne” lamp, designed circa 1934 for Jean-Michel Frank, is a stylistic homage to the highly complex and artistic alabaster oil lamps discovered in 1922 in the tomb of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. “For me, the most beautiful statue is neither Greek nor Roman and certainly not from the Renaissance—it is Egyptian," wrote the young artist to his parents from Rome in 1920. “The Egyptian sculptures have an excellence, an evenness of line and shape, a perfect technique that has never been mastered since.” The distinction between object and sculpture was of particular interest to Giacometti within his own work, so it is natural that the artist was impressed and inspired by the sublime lines and proportions of the Egyptian oil lamps. His adaptation of the form reduced it to its purest, most essential elements, eliminating the oil lamp’s side armatures and incised floral details. The result is a profoundly modern and abstract work, as well as an early testament to the artist’s enduring fascination for the arts of Egypt and Africa, which had a tremendous influence on his artistic practice throughout his career.