Diego Giacometti (1902–1985), Swiss sculptor and designer, was the younger brother of Alberto Giacometti. After studying in Basel and St. Gallen, he moved to Paris in 1927, where his brother was then a student of Antoine Bourdelle at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.

The collaboration between Diego and Alberto became lifelong and closely intertwined; they shared a studio on rue Hippolyte-Maindron in Paris, where Diego worked as his elder brother’s assistant, and together they executed commissions for prominent collectors, including the Maeght and Noailles families.

Over time, Diego developed an increasingly independent sculptural expression, not least through his characteristic animal motifs, which in the following decades often reappeared as decorative elements in his furniture production.

After Alberto’s death in 1966, Diego entered a twenty-year period in which, driven by grief for his late brother, he redoubled his efforts and worked diligently in a technique he had by then fully mastered. During this late phase, a shift occurred in his artistic practice: while preserving his brother’s legacy, he increasingly emerged as a sculptor in his own right.

A furniture type that almost emblematises Diego’s artistic language is the so-called cradle table, the first version of which was developed for his friend, film producer Raoul Lévy, around 1963, and which he subsequently evolved into several versions over the following years.

The present table, “Berceau”, modèle aux chats, was created around 1970 and is characterised by gently curved, cradle-like side supports that carry an open, airy tabletop, crowned by the characteristic cat figures – a recurring motif in Giacometti’s world. Already in his youth in Switzerland, Giacometti lived in close contact with animals, and the natural and animal worlds became fundamental sources of inspiration in his art. During his time in Paris, he lived surrounded by cats, which were a natural part of his creative environment and daily life. Here, the cats do not appear as mere decorative additions but as integrated elements of the composition’s rhythm and focal points, as inherent to the table’s form as they were to the lived reality they inhabited.

The table clearly encapsulates the Giacometti brothers’ shared approach, in which cast and patinated bronze serves as the primary expressive medium. The green-patinated surface clearly reveals the sculptor’s handwork and enhances the sense of a material shaped directly through artistic process rather than industrial production.

The present table represents a central and distinctive work in Diego’s oeuvre, convincingly highlighting the tension-filled boundary between sculpture and furniture – a boundary that is constantly explored and dissolved in his work.

Estimate: 278 000 – 371 000 EUR

Viewing: April 17–27, Nybrogatan 32, Stockholm
Live Auction: April 28

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