Leonora Carrington, “La Grande Dame” (1951), painted wooden sculpture, 79 1/2 inches tall (~200 cm) (all pictures courtesy Sotheby’s New York)
Rising in the marketplace after practically 30 years, a uncommon and distinctive sculpture by Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington is the shining star within the forthcoming Fashionable Night Sale at Sotheby’s in New York. Thought to be the artist’s sculptural magnum opus, Carrington’s “La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman)” (1951) is predicted to fetch between $5 million and $7 million on November 18.
It’s potential that the figures are a conservative estimate, contemplating that Carrington’s main portray “Les Distractions de Dagobert” (1945) smashed information in Might when it offered for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s — eclipsing her earlier high sale worth of $3.3 million. Standing at practically 80 inches tall (~203 cm), the carved and painted wooden statue is “undoubtedly the greatest sculpture in Carrington’s celebrated body of work” in line with Anna Di Stasi, who heads Sotheby’s Latin American Artwork.
Like “Les Distractions de Dagobert,” Carrington’s poised cat girl embodies the artist’s worldly, historic, and off-beat pursuits via a wide range of vibrantly painted vignettes referencing cross-cultural folkloric traditions and iconographies rooted within the female and the divine. Throughout the picket determine’s chest, Carrington painted a girl with a goose for a head affords an egg to the character throughout from her who caresses a smaller, child-like being at her facet. Beneath them, two certain figures lay peacefully in a forest as flowers and animals sprout from their our bodies, surrounded by woodland predators and prey conveyed in a petroglyphic fashion with gentle detailing.
Left: Element of frontal vignettes alongside “La Grande Dame”Proper: Element of painted deity and spirits on the again of “La Grande Dame”
On the again of “La Grande Dame,” Carrington refers back to the trade of the egg when depicting a wolf-like deity cradling a spirit embodying a dandelion seed. A full-fledged dandelion deity stands on high of the wolf deity, holding a small seed or speck of sunshine.
British-born Carrington, who settled in Mexico Metropolis in 1942 and lived there for the remainder of her life, labored carefully with woodworker José Horna, the husband of her shut pal and colleague Kati Horna, to comprehend this sculpture. The cat head, slim determine, and elongated appendages reference the Historic Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, who is alleged to have protected Decrease Egypt from illness and evil spirits in addition to being thought to be symbolic of being pregnant and childbirth.
Previously a part of the gathering of British poet and surrealist patron Edward James, “La Grande Dame” has since made appearances in exhibitions at Serpentine Gallery and Tate Fashionable in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in Manhattan, and the Peggy Guggenheim Assortment in Venice, amongst different establishments the world over.
“‘La Grande Dame’ is a remarkable expression of Leonora Carrington’s mythical imagination, offering fresh insight into her creative vision as an artist,” stated Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s head of Impressionist and Fashionable Artwork within the Americas. “An undeniable masterpiece, it occupies a central place in her artistic legacy.”
“La Grande Dame” will go on view as part of the pre-sale exhibition at Sotheby’s New York beginning Friday, November 8.