Brown head: Giacometti sculpture and the rarest diamond

Sculpture by Alberto Giacometti, landscape by Claude Monet, the rarest blue diamond and "Sunflowers" by Zurab Tsereteli. May promises to be another culminating month in the field of art auctions. And although no records are expected, there will be a lot of super-expensive lots. Izvestia has selected the most interesting of them.

On the eve of Victory Day, Izvestia has prepared a special project "Two Worlds. One War", dedicated to the history of the confrontation between the USSR and Germany from the mid-30s to the mid-40s of the last century.

"The Big Thin Head" by Alberto Giacometti

The most expensive lot of the month will probably be the "Big Thin Head" by Alberto Giacometti. This is the top lot of the upcoming Sotheby's New York auctions, which will also feature paintings by Picasso, Magritte, Signac, Kandinsky, Monet and other masters of impressionism and modernism. However, even Picasso's painting, estimated at $ 12-18 million, is far from Giacometti's work: it is going to fetch about $ 70 million.

However, this is not a record for Giacometti: "The Walking Man I" was sold in 2010 for as much as $104 million. But there are good chances that the "Big Thin Head" will at least approach a nine-figure sum during the bidding process. The sculpture was made in 1954 and cast in 1955 in an amount of six copies. But it is this unnumbered version that is unique: it is hand-painted in brown, brown and gray tones.

In 2013, at the same Sotheby's, another version of these six went for $50 million. But since then, prices have risen and the dollar has fallen in price. Well, the presence of color refinement in this case is really very important.

Giacometti portrayed his brother Diego in this sculpture, but there is practically no portrait resemblance. It turned out to be, rather, a metaphor for a twentieth-century man, frightening and surreal. In profile, he looks even more familiar, although the complex, nuanced relief encourages you to look at the bronze in detail, but the full-face figure turns out to be flattened, elongated. The head turns into a kind of knife.

Landscape by Claude Monet

Sotheby's main competitor, Christie's— is also planning auctions in New York. But in this case, the top lot is a 19th-century work: a magnificent landscape by Claude Monet, created in 1891. "Poplars at the edge, twilight" is a vertical canvas exactly 1 m high. It is an exemplary piece for Monet, very revealing and at the same time not as familiar as images of haystacks or water lilies.

In 1891, Monet painted a series of works depicting poplars standing in an even row along the riverbank. Moreover, the painter loved this motif so much that when they decided to sell a plot of land with trees, he agreed with the future owner, who was going to cut them down in order to slow down the planned changes: Monet needed a few more months to complete work on the cycle.

On the one hand, the image of poplars at different times of the day, with different lighting, can be compared with the most famous series of this kind — "Rouen Cathedral". On the other hand, if you look at all the works together, not only the color scheme catches your eye, but also the shape: the artist is clearly interested in how poplars line up in lines, zigzags and geometric shapes. And in this regard, Monet predicts the formal experiments of the 20th century.

Nevertheless, of the entire cycle, the work put up for auction is perhaps the most exquisite and subtle in color: the painter conveys the very beginning of sunset with the most delicate pinkish shades of the sky behind the poplars. In general, it can be assumed that the very modest estimate of $ 30-50 million for Monet will be exceeded, and significantly.

The rarest blue diamond

Tens of millions of dollars this month promise to bring not only works of art, but also jewelry. The rarest 10-carat Mediterranean Blue diamond will go under the hammer at Sotheby's in Geneva. It was made from a diamond weighing almost 32 carats, mined in South Africa. After cutting, a rectangular stone was obtained, which is recommended to be worn in a ring. Although, of course, this is not so much an ornament as a collector's rarity.

It is believed that only 0.3% of all existing diamonds have a blue color. It appears due to boron impurities, but this result is possible only at very high pressure — higher than in the case of colorless stones. Blue diamonds form deeper in the Earth's magma — at a depth of 400 to 600 km. And as a result, volcanic eruptions end up near the surface. But even among them, only a small number — about 1% — are distinguished by a bright shade.

It is clear that there are a number of other parameters, and all of them in this case are also outstanding. All together, it provides an impressive estimate of $20 million. Not a record (in 2015, another blue diamond was bought for $48.4 million). But nevertheless.

"Sunflowers" by Zurab Tsereteli

Well, it is impossible to do in our selection without a domestic lot at the Russian auctions. More recently, the head of the Academy of Arts, Zurab Tsereteli, passed away, and now the Sovcom auction house responded to the sad event (and, obviously, to the increased interest in the painter's legacy) by presenting his canvas "Sunflowers".

It is known that this was one of Tsereteli's favorite motifs. Just as Degas endlessly painted ballerinas and Labas painted airships, Tsereteli loved to depict sunflowers. I can't count how many such canvases he painted. Moreover, it was in them that the features of his style were most clearly manifested: cheerfulness, sunshine, pasty (oil forms a literally convex relief on canvas), some simplification, naivety (in this regard, Tsereteli is the successor of Pirosmani), but most importantly — a riot of color. His self-sufficiency.

The item that will go under the hammer on May 22 demonstrates all these qualities in full. And, probably, if Tsereteli's legacy had not been so voluminous, and there were so many different paintings depicting sunflowers, this canvas would have been worth much more. In the meantime, they are asking for 3 million rubles for it. And, admittedly, it is extremely interesting how the auction will end: whether collectors will fight for the work and whether its price will soar. Although, whatever the result, it is hardly worth making any generalizations here. Very little time has passed, so Tsereteli's work has yet to be evaluated, first by the art market, and then by history.