Fondation Giacometti

Some photographs and a drawing enable us to date this chandelier from before 1951. This average-sized chandelier is made of a cone-shaped lampshade surrounded by two rings. The two rings are capped by four cones fitted in a cubic structure, four diabolos and three figures of standing women. The whole of this structure is suspended from the ceiling by a plaster cone-shaped cover bail. The rather smooth treatment of the plaster for the cones is contrasted with the rough contours of the rings and figurines on which the light plays differently. This object comes from the collection of Alice Tériade, widow of Tériade (Estratios Elefteriades, called Tériade, 1897-1983), collector, publisher and friend of Alberto Giacometti. Giacometti designed several chandeliers and some furniture for Tériade’s Parisian apartment and for his villa in Saint-Jean Cap Ferrat. Three of these chandeliers follow the same structural pattern, in plaster and in bronze: a central lampshade surrounded by two rings capped with cones more or less small. Another bronze chandelier having belonged to the Tériade takes up some elements of this chandelier, in particular the small cones fitted in the cubic structures. Alberto Giacometti had already created chandeliers for the interior designer Jean-Michel Frank in the Thirties. After the war, he continued creating decorative arts objects, among them chandeliers; they were mainly commissioned by close friends. It is not the first time Alberto Giacometti mixed the representation of the human figure with a decorative arts object for he had already created table lamps and floor lamps with women’s heads for the designer Jean-Michel Frank. Dating from after the war, we know of at least three other models of chandeliers capped with figurines. The three silhouettes placed on the external ring definitely remind us of the sculptures created in 1950 like Trois figurines et une tête (la petite place), La Clairière, and again, La Forêt.

No inscription

TERIADE
Alice TERIADE
Sale Artcurial. Briest. Le Fur. Poulain. F. Tajan Paris (France), October 20th, 2007, lot n ° 10

Collection Alice Tériade, Paris : Artcurial. Briest. Le Fur. Poulain. F. Tajan, 2007, lot no. 10, p. 22-27