Sotheby’s has announced for its February 28th sale in London a chandelier by Alberto Giacometti estimated at between £6 and £8m. Given the rage for Diego Giacometti’s design objects and furniture in recent years, this work which combines elements of Alberto’s sculpture canon with a decorative object has the potential to raise design sector values:
Giacometti only produced such objects for friends, and the plaster model for Lustre avec femme, homme et oiseau was originally commissioned around 1949 by Louis Broder, a Swiss publisher based in Paris who specialised in producing printed editions of works by artists including Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. Several years later Giacometti agreed to cast three bronzes from the plaster, of which the other two were acquired by the artist’s dealer Aimé Maeght and dealer Heinz Berggruen – who donated the plaster original to the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1983.
