Giacometti’s ‘L’homme Au Doigt,’ Coming to Auction for the First Time, Could Become Most Expensive Sculpture Ever

Giacometti’s Pointing Man.

COURTESY CHRISTIE’S

At Christie’s evening sale in New York on May 11, Alberto Giacometti’s life-size sculpture L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) will be for sale for the first time at auction. The work has been owned by a “distinguished private collector” for the last 45 years, according to a statement from Christie’s. The auction house has estimated that the piece will sell “in the region of $130 million,” which would break the current auction record for the entire medium of sculpture.

Giacometti made six casts of the work, which stands five-feet, seven-inches tall, and one artist’s proof. Four of the casts are in museum collections–the Museum of Modern Art in New York has one, as does London’s Tate Gallery–and the rest belong to foundations or private collections.

Jussi Pylkkanen, Christie’s global president, said of the sculpture in a statement, “It is quite simply one of the finest works of art I have had the honor to handle in my long career at Christie’s.”