Sotheby’s will sell Leonora Carrington‘s 1951 sculpture La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman) this November at a modern art evening sale, where it will head to auction with an estimate of $5 million to $7 million.
“This is her greatest sculpture,” Julian Dawes, Sotheby’s senior vice president and head of Impressionist and modern art for the Americas, told ARTnews.
La Grande Dame is made of carved and polychrome wood that has been painted with imagery alluding to a rich tapestry of cultural references, including ancient folklore, witchcraft, and an Egyptian creation myth. Most recently, the six-foot-tall sculpture was exhibited as part of the 2022 exhibition “Surrealism and Magic: Enchanted Modernity,” which was staged at Venice’s Peggy Guggenheim Collection during the Biennale, a show that borrowed its name from Carrington’s writings. At the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, La Grande Dame was displayed next to Carrington’s painting Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945), which sold for $28.5 million this year, setting a record for the artist.
“We really get to show this completely distinct dimension of her as a sculptor, which is a huge part of her artistic identity,” Dawes said. He added that the sale of La Grande Dame (The Cat Woman) deserved extra attention because of the work’s rarity—Carrington produced few sculptures, and this one has been accepted as a bona fide work by her, unlike some other three-dimensional pieces commonly attributed to this Surrealist. “I’m really happy and satisfied and excited that that we were able to find something of this quality and significance that can kind of match the energy, hopefully, to an extent of Dagobert, and continue that momentum.”
La Grande Dame also has a notable provenance: it was owned for years by Edward James, who patronized many of the Surrealists and even befriended some of them, including Carrington.
Carrington’s market is fast growing as the history of Surrealism is rewritten to account for more women involved in the movement, hence her record earlier this year. “There’s so much interest in demand for Carrington that was unmet,” Dawes said, “and I think it kind of spilled out onto that painting in that moment.”
Museums and other institutions are also expected to be among the bidders for La Grande Dame. Dawes also noted the wide, global relevance of the artist’s identity and the sculpture itself. Carrington was “a British artist working in Mexico using Egyptian and Celtic and pre -Columbian iconography, creating something that’s wholly fantastical and original,” he said. “It’s awesome and very relevant across the world. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a lot of institutional activity.”
