Giacometti’s Albatros is up for auction, but the price is low

The oiseau, better known as theAlbatrossextraordinary plaster bas-relief created in 1930 by Alberto Giacometti and given to the couple of collectors Jean and Violet Henson to furnish their villa in Hammamet. A work that is now being sold with an almost negligible starting price (this is how some experts defined it, heard from Le Figaro) of 250/350 thousand euros.

But the Albatros is not the only Giacometti piece from the Henson collection that enthusiasts will be able to purchase in Paris. In fact, a lamp, also made of plaster (starting 80/100 thousand euros), a lamp will also be auctioned vase called Lotus (150/200 thousand euros) and the so-called Tutankhamun lamp (120/150). All pieces have been certified by Giacometti Foundation who recognized its paternity as well as its value.

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The story of these design objects – simple and very refined in their essential lines and light color – created by the Swiss artist in the 1930s and then arrived at the Henson home through his friend and associate, the interior designer Jean-Michel Frankis also the story of one symbolic collection of the era between the two world wars and of the intellectual society that passed through it.

The Hensons were an exceptional and extravagant American couple, whose birthplace was not brilliant, but capable of intuiting beauty and making it the heart of their activity in a period in which artists, writers, painters, sculptors escaped the horrors of conflicts, especially European ones, by traveling in look for oases and meeting places where they can share their work. This becomes the villa of Hammamet in Tunisia where the Hensons, who had met on Capri, decided to retire after 1926, the year of their marriage.

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The prices of Giacometti’s works, on sale from Coutau-Bégarie & Associates of Paris, escape the market value which would have them much higher because the number of copies made by the artist is not known. As he explains to Figaro Rafael Ortiz, gallery owner from Paris. Just to understand: another copy of the Albatros, belonging to the French designer’s collection Hubert de Givenchywas sold in 2022 by Christie’s for 4.2 million euros.