Diego Giacometti and Diana Shapiro at the artist’s studio, 1984. Image courtesy: the Estate of Diana Shapiro.

Diana Shapiro commissioned the present Tabouret with harpie from Diego Giacometti in 1977. With a subtly golden patina, it stands apart from the darker patina of the Figure floor lamp, Étoile table lamp, and Berceau low table her husband ordered from the artist in 1969. For this design, Diego typically adorned one of the bottom stretchers with a little mouse, but Diana opted to have a mythical harpie perched on her version, telling friends that the mouse would have been too startling to live with.
- Provenance
  Diana and Irvin Shapiro, New York, acquired directly from the artist, 1977
- Literature
  Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1986, pp. 46-47
  François Baudot, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1998, p. 24
  Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti: Sculpteur de Meubles, Paris, 2018, pp. 172, 185
- Artist Biography
  Diego Giacometti
  Swiss • 1902 - 1985
  In 1935 Diego Giacometti took a holiday in Stampa, the Swiss town in which he grew up. The trip marked one of the first periods in which he was separated from his brother Alberto Giacometti, and perhaps in connection with having removed himself from the shadow of his brother's career, he began his first animal sculptures. It was shortly after this trip that the younger Giacometti also started making furniture, after patrons admired the stands he was crafting for his brother's sculptures. Diego modeled his maquettes in plaster (as opposed to clay or wax, which was the more common choice for sculptors) and cast his furniture in bronze, a departure from most metal furniture at the time, which was cast in iron. Illustrious clients included the Maeght and Noailles families as well as the decorator Jean-Michel Frank, who commissioned Alberto (assisted by Diego) to create plaster lighting and fireplace accessories.
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