Lot 9*,AR
LE CORBUSIER(1887-1965)Personnage assis, thème dit 'La biche'
Ending from 28 November 2025, 12:00 GMT
Online, London, New Bond Street£3,000 - £5,000
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Adelaide Dunn
Associate Specialist, Head of Sale
LE CORBUSIER (1887-1965)
Personnage assis, thème dit 'La biche'
signed with the artist's crow monogram, inscribed and dated 'Bonne année 53 Chandigarh Punjab 15 déc 52' and further indistinctly inscribed (lower left)
pen and ink and coloured pencil on paper
33.2 x 20.4cm (13 1/16 x 8 1/16in).
Executed in Chandigarh on 15 December 1952
signed with the artist's crow monogram, inscribed and dated 'Bonne année 53 Chandigarh Punjab 15 déc 52' and further indistinctly inscribed (lower left)
pen and ink and coloured pencil on paper
33.2 x 20.4cm (13 1/16 x 8 1/16in).
Executed in Chandigarh on 15 December 1952
Footnotes
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Eric Mouchet.
This work will be included in the forthcoming Le Corbusier catalogue raisonné of drawings, currently being prepared by the Fondation Le Corbusier.
Provenance
Private collection (a gift from the artist in 1952-1953).
Private collection, Zurich; their estate sale, Schuler Auktionen, Zurich, 20 June 2013, lot 4121.
Private collection, Switzerland (acquired at the above sale).
The present work is a study for Le Corbusier's series of carved wood sculptures titled La biche or Petite confidence, realised in 1963 in collaboration with Joseph Savina, a Breton woodworker and sculptor. An example of this sculpture as well as some ten related preparatory drawings are currently held by the Fondation Le Corbusier, Paris. The present work was folded and posted as a letter by the artist from Chandigarh, Punjab, where he was working on his designs for the Chandigarh Capitol Complex in the 1950s. While the identity of the original recipient remains unknown, the small, stylised crow design among the inscriptions to the lower left was a pictorial signature that the artist reserved for his close friends. The name 'Le Corbusier' is an altered form of the artist's grandfather's name, Lecorbésier, which comes from the old French word 'corbel', meaning 'crow'.