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Lot 15
ALBERTO GIACOMETTI(1901-1966)Buste de Sepa
19 October 2023, 17:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £8,960 inc. premium
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ALBERTO GIACOMETTI (1901-1966)
Buste de Sepa
pen and ink on paper
26.9 x 21cm (10 9/16 x 8 1/4in).
Executed in Paris circa 1937
pen and ink on paper
26.9 x 21cm (10 9/16 x 8 1/4in).
Executed in Paris circa 1937
Footnotes
Provenance
Tériade Collection, Paris (a gift from the artist, circa 1950).
Alice Tériade Collection, Paris (by descent from the above).
Private collection, Paris (a gift from the above in 2007).
Anon. sale, Fauve Paris, Paris, 18 March 2023, lot 3.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.
Literature
Fondation Giacometti, Giacometti's Artworks, Alberto Giacometti Database (AGD), online catalogue, no. AGD 1704 (illustrated).
In Paris in the mid-1930s, Alberto Giacometti broke away from the Surrealist group that he had joined in 1931. He returned his artistic focus to figurative art, spending countless hours in the Musée du Louvre executing drawn studies of ancient and medieval sculptures. He became transfixed in particular by the Egyptian sculptures, perceiving them to be visions frozen in time and space. Their squared, monolithic frameworks influenced the geometrical structure of his line drawings as well as his iconic standing and walking sculptural figures. The present drawing depicts the Louvre's painted limestone Statue of Sepa, dating from 2,700–2,620 B.C. Sepa was a royal priest of Egypt's Third Dynasty who was buried with his wife Nesa in the necropolis of Saqqara, wherefrom the Louvre's statue originated.