A 1955 bronze bust by Alberto Giacometti that carried a $70 million didn’t discover a purchaser at Sotheby’s fashionable night public sale in New York on Tuesday.
The quilt lot for the sale’s on-line web page, the Giacometti reportedly got here from the property of actual property magnate Sheldon Solow, who died in 2020. Proven on the 1956 Venice Biennale, the sculpture was beforehand owned by Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, who had it on view of their eponymous basis in southern France.
Auctioneer Oliver Barker began the bidding for the work, which was supplied with no assure, at $59 million, however no collectors put up a bid. After 4 minutes, the lot was pulled.
“Gross sales are sometimes managed and orchestrated however this was an natural public sale second,” Sotheby’s CEO Charles Stewart told the Wall Street Journal. “However we stand by the significance of the work.”
Works by Giacometti have lengthy been seen as probably the most blue-chip of trophy items for collectors, commonly promoting for eight figures or extra. The artist’s public sale document presently stands at $141.3 million, greater than double the bust’s estimate; that value was achieved in 2015 when ARTnews Prime 200 Collector Steven A. Cohen purchased Pointing Man (1947).
One other work by Giacometti has additionally lately been within the information, as a part of a legal dispute between collectors David Geffen and Justin Solar. In keeping with the lawsuit, Le Nez, which Solar purchased for $78.4 million at Sotheby’s in 2021, was bought with out his information to Geffen. Geffen has responded by saying that the lawsuit constitutes nothing greater than “vendor’s regret” on Solar’s half.
Forward of Tuesday’s sale, Sotheby’s stated of the work in its catalog essay for the sale, “Grande tête mince is Alberto Giacometti’s masterpiece.” Made as a tribute to the artist’s brother, Diego, the work exhibits “the definitive expression of his quest for a brand new sculptural language, one which captures the artist at his most evocative and haunting.”
That pre-sale buzz, nonetheless, didn’t appear to persuade any consumers.
