Alberto Giacometti

Private collection, Paris

Louisa Guinness Gallery, London

Acquired from the above by the present owner

Marilena Mosco, L'arte del Gioiello e il Gioiello d'artista dal '900 ad oggi, Giunti, Florence, 2001, p. 288 for gold version

Ghislaine Wood, ed., Ulrich Lehmann, and Jennifer Mundy, Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, V&A Publications, London, 2007, p. 333

Diane Venet, From Picasso to Jeff Koons: The Artist as Jeweler, Skira, Milan, 2011, p. 54

Diane Venet, Bijoux d'Artistes, de Calder à Koons, la collection idéale de Diane Venet, Flammarion, Paris, 2018, pp. 88-89 for gold version

Manon Lecaplain, Emmanuel Guigon, et al., Picasso y las joyas de artista, Museu Picasso, Barcelona, 2021, p. 144 for gold version

London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, 2007

This Untitled Medallion (Man with Raised Arms) comes from Giacometti’s series involving repeated motifs including people with raised arms, birds, and sphinxes that he designed as buttons for Elsa Schiaparelli. Schiap collaborated with artists and friends to infuse her fashion with artist’ work, and asked Giacometti in 1936 to design brooches and buttons. Giacometti, like Ernst, appreciated archaic, primitive forms and consistently returned to them in his work. This unevenly rounded button cast can be interpreted from multiple viewpoints, and some consider the figure to be a hunter, furthering the primitive feel of the work.