This is a large bronze sculpture after Alberto Giacometti's "Buste d'Annette". Giacometti was one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. He was also a painter and draftsman who was influenced by Cubism and Surrealism. In the 1920's he lived and worked mainly in Paris. In the 1930's his sculptures were no more than 3 inches tall. During World War II, he took refuge in Switzerland, and in 1946, he met Annette Arm, a secretary for the Red Cross there. They married three years later, and Annette became his main female model, and his tiny sculptures suddenly became larger, and as they grew larger, they became thinner, and he became famous afterwards for his elongated sculptures.
Giacometti did ten sculptures of Annette's head between 1962 and 1965, and these late studies of Annette were among the finest busts that Giacometti created after 1950. One sculpture in the series entitled "Buste d'Annette VI" sold at Christie's in New York in 2017 for $3.1 million dollars, but that doesn't tell the whole story. In 2000 a Giacometti bronze, Grande Femme Debout I, sold for $14.3 million. Grande Femme Debout II was bought for $27.4 million at Christie's in New York City in 2008. In 2010 L'Homme Qui Marche I, a life-sized bronze sculpture of a man, went for $104.3 million at Sotheby's in London. Grande Tête Mince, a large bronze bust, sold for $53.3 million just three months later. L'Homme au Doigt (Pointing Man) sold for $126 million at Christie's in New York in 2015, a record for a sculpture at auction.
There are several varieties of the Annette bust. The rough, eroded, heavily worked surface of his pieces in the 1940's typify his technique. It is 24 1/4 in. tall, 8 1/2 in. deep, and 11 1/4 in. wide across the back of the arms.