Rachel Griffith
Sale Coordinator
Preview Lot
CÉSAR(CÉSAR BALDACCINI) (1921-1998)Le couple
21 – 31 July 2025, 12:00 EDT
New YorkUS$18,000 - US$25,000
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CÉSAR (CÉSAR BALDACCINI) (1921-1998)
Le couple
welded iron
12 1/4 x 7 1/4 x 4 1/4 in (31 x 18.4 x 10.8 cm)
Executed in 1951, this work is unique.
welded iron
12 1/4 x 7 1/4 x 4 1/4 in (31 x 18.4 x 10.8 cm)
Executed in 1951, this work is unique.
Footnotes
This work is registered in the Archives of Denyse Durand-Ruel, Paris, under registration number 423.
Provenance
Private collection, Arizona (acquired directly from the artist in the early 1950s).
Thence by descent to the present owner.
Literature
D. Durand-Ruel, César Catalogue Raisonné 1947-1964, Vol. 1, Paris, 1994, no. CR46 (illustrated p. 43).
Executed in 1951, Le couple is a rare and intimate early sculpture by César. Forged from welded iron, the present lot exemplifies César's visual language, one marked by the reanimation of scrap and discarded matter into forms of unexpected tenderness and humanity.
Born in Marseille in 1921, César was deeply influenced by the working-class environment of his upbringing in which he was fascinated by metal and machinery. Further inspired by Pablo Picasso and Julio González, César began welding together pieces of scrap iron to create highly expressive, anthropomorphic forms in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Le couple embodies César's instinctive use of raw material to create figures that beautifully balance abstraction and emotional resonance. The entwined figures, fragile yet resilient, convey intimacy and vulnerability through their spindly limbs and heavily textured surfaces, anticipating the tension between material and subject that would define the artist's later Compressions and Expansions.
This unique sculpture, acquired directly from the artist in the early 1950s and held in the same family collection ever since, offers an extraordinary glimpse into the genesis of César's sculptural language, one rooted in labor, metamorphosis, and the poetry of the everyday.