Alberto Giacometti

Private collection, France

Charles Juliet, Giacometti, Paris, 1985, p. 33

Léopold Diego Sanchez, Jean-Michel Frank, Paris, 1997, p. 248

Pierre-Emmanuel Martin-Vivier, Jean-Michel Frank : L'étrange luxe du rien, Paris, 2006, p. 237

Véronique Wiesinger, Giacometti : La figure au Défi, Paris, 2007, p. 43

This lot is sold with a certificate of authenticity from the Comité Giacometti and is recorded in the database of the Fondation Giacometti, the Alberto Giacometti Database, under the number AGD 4662

In the 1930s, Alberto Giacometti created three sconce models featuring a hand holding a luminous bowl, which he named La Main, La Griffe, Le Poing. Delicate, disturbing or powerful, they stimulate our imagination.

The Poing sconce, here in its patinated bronze and alabaster version, embodies restrained strength and silent wisdom. The clenched fist, frozen in controlled tension, symbolises both resistance and restraint. With this powerful gesture, Albert Giacometti offers a work in which the hand, simple and expressive, becomes a universal symbol, a bearer of hope. The alabaster bowl holding back the light.

The contrast between the materials - bronze, solid and durable, and alabaster, translucent and delicate - creates a dialogue between light and shadow, suggesting that strength and wisdom coexist. Our sconce becomes a metaphor for the human spirit, capable of closing in on itself, but also of radiating its inner energy.

©Succession Alberto Giacometti / ADAGP, Paris, 2024