News: Giacometti Bronze Breaks Auction Sale Record

GotBronze? “Walking Man I,” a six-foot-tall bronze sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, sold for $92.5 million, or, with fees, $104.3 million, at Sotheby’s in London Wednesday night, breaking the world record price for a work of art at an auction. The 1905 Picasso piece “Boy with a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)” held the previous record of $104.1 million.

The sculpture, cast in 1961, sold for over three times as much as any other Giacometti and about four times as much as was predicted. The buyer’s identity is unknown, but dealers speculate that the sculpture was purchased by a Russian or Middle Eastern collector. Roman Abramovich, to whom some hypotheses point, collected a 1976 Francis Bacon triptych for $86.3 million, while the Georgian Boris Ivanishvili spent $95.2 million for the Picasso portrait “Dora Maar with a Cat.”

“Walking Man I” was cast in an edition of six and four artist proofs, most of which are in museums or private collections. Architect Gordon Bunshaft commissioned it, among other bronzes, for Chase Manhattan Plaza in downtown Manhattan to stand alongside his 60-story glass-and-steel Chase headquarters. Though the project never came to fruition, Giacometti made–and destroyed–many of the sculptures.

Find the full story at the New York Times.