A Giacometti Sculpture Damaged by a Clumsy Cat Was Deemed ‘Worthless’ by Experts on a TV Show. Then It Sold for $612,000

Last fall, authentication
experts on the BBC reality show Fake or Fortune debated whether or not a broken sculpture
had been made by Alberto Giacometti as its owners claimed.
Ultimately, the hosts were unable to prove the Swiss master’s
authorship and determined that it was likely
“worthless.”

“We’ve never tackled sculpture
before and it’s been astonishingly hard to find out information
about Giacometti gazing heads and the plaster versions in
particular,” said host Fiona Bruce during the episode.
“Unfortunately though, the damage [this] piece has sustained might
be too great. It may no longer be possible to accept it as a
genuine work.”

But then in February that same
sculpture sold for £500,000 ($612,000) at Christie’s “Art of the
Surreal” sale in London.

The episode had ended with Bruce
and her colleague, Philip Mould, sending the sculpture to the
Giacometti Committee in Paris for further review. In
a re-aired version of
the episode last night, an updated segment revealed that, after
removing layers of paint applied to the work decades ago, the
committee uncovered Giacometti’s signature and confirmed its
authenticity. 

The plaster sculpture, a white
square work titled Tête
qui regarde (The
Gazing Head), came to
the TV program through its owner, Claire Clark-Hall, who claimed
that her late grandmother had acquired the piece directly from the
artist in Paris in the 1930s, after befriending his
mistress.

In the 1960s, a family cat
knocked the sculpture off a mantle, causing it to crack.
Clark-Hall’s grandfather repaired it with cheap spackling paste and
household paint. It wasn’t until those materials were removed by
professional restorers that the inscription on the bottom of the
sculpture became clear: “Alberto Giacometti 1928.” By that point,
the show had already aired. 

“Even though we have quite long
lead times, we still work to a television deadline on Fake or
Fortune? and the art world does not always observe the same
pace,” Mould told The
Telegraph.
“This one took longer and more consideration than most. But it was
worth waiting for.”

The post A Giacometti Sculpture Damaged by a Clumsy Cat Was
Deemed ‘Worthless’ by Experts on a TV Show. Then It Sold for
$612,000 appeared first on artnet News.