Diego Giacometti

Acquired directly from the artist by the art editor Arnold Fawcus circa 1961

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Pierre Bergé & Associés, Modern and Contemporary Art, Paris, 22 June 2016, lot 1

Galerie L'Arc en Seine, Paris

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2016

Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 2005, p. 47

Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti : Sculpteur de meubles, Paris, 2018, p. 142

Diego Giacometti’s aux bouquetins table featured in this collection is one of only three known examples to date.

Our table was acquired directly from Diego Giacometti in 1961 by Arnold Fawcus (1917-1971), a British art publisher based in Paris and founder of the Trianon Press publishing house. Close to the avant-garde artists, Fawcus was, like Teriade, the Maeght family, and Pierre Matisse, one of the first to commission Diego Giacometti. The two other known examples of the Table aux bouquetins are the one installed by Adrien Maeght at Mas Bernard in Saint Paul de Vence and the one acquired by a collector in 1961 through Arnold Fawcus (Artcurial sale, Paris, May 29, 2011, lot 26).

Designed around 1955, the Table aux bouquetins model is one of Diego Giacometti’s very first furniture creations. With its legs in the shape of stylized ibexes, the work reflects the artist’s interest in Roman antiquity, which fueled his formal imagination at the time.

Among the archaeological references that may have inspired Diego Giacometti, two examples discovered in Pompeii can be cited: first, a 2nd-century AD tripod pedestal table with legs formed from horse heads and hooves joined by a crossbar (Parco Archeologico di Pompei, inv. 3303); and more notably, a rectangular table resting on four legs also composed of horse heads and hooves , dating from the 1st century AD, now preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

But whereas Emmanuel Pontremoli sought to faithfully reproduce the Roman model for Villa Kerylos, Diego Giacometti broke free from it. Through this table-sculpture with its graceful lines, he delivers his vision of a dreamlike antiquity. The modeling of the sculpture, the light and balanced structure, with its struts in the style of tensioners (a constructive detail that the artist would develop in several of his later works), already show in 1955 the mastery and sensitivity of an accomplished sculptor. The sculptor chose a brown-green patina for the bronze, which he combined with a rectangular green marble top, giving the whole piece a mysterious presence that transcends time and classification.