Christie’s to Offer a Masterpiece of 20th Century Sculpture

CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI’S

LA JEUNE FILLE SOPHISTIQUÉE (NANCY CUNARD)

From The Collection of Elizabeth Stafford

Positioned to Make a World Auction Record for the Artist

New York – Christie’s May 15th Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art will bring to the market for the first-time Constantin Brancusi’s, La Jeune fille sophistiquée (Nancy Cunard), a unique sculpture, cast in polished bronze in Paris in 1932 (estimate upon request). La Jeune fille sophistiquée comes from The Collection of Elizabeth Stafford. Mrs. Stafford and her husband Frederick Stafford acquired the work directly from Brancusi during a visit to his studio in 1955, and it has remained in their collection ever since.

An extraordinarily rare and important work, La Jeune fille sophistiquée is the only existing bronze example of Brancusi’s stylized portrait of the Anglo-American heiress and writer Nancy Cunard. The work retains the artist’s original hand-carved marble base, a factor of immense significance given the importance Brancusi attached to the interaction between materials and the interplay between his sculptural subjects and the pedestals upon which he placed them.

Conor Jordan, Deputy Chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art, New York, remarked: A daring and exquisite work of art, the Brancusi from The Collection of Elizabeth Stafford represents one of the vanishingly small number of the artist’s bronzes with its original carved base not in a museum collection. Its appearance on the market will be an exciting event for the world’s foremost collectors of Modern art.”

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