Broken foot yields big money
An insurance company has paid the Zurich Kunsthaus SFr1.65 million ($1.77 million) after a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti was damaged in Russia.
“La Forêt” was sent to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg on loan in 2008, but one of the work’s lean bronze figures was damaged during transport, the Tages-Anzeiger newspaper reported on Wednesday.
The sculpture – the fourth in an edition of six – was cast in 1950. The Kunsthaus acquired it for $13.2 million at a Christie’s auction in New York ten years ago.
The upside: thanks to the insurance money, the museum was able to end the 2010 financial year in the black – leaving it with a surplus of SFr450,000.
The sculpture has since been repaired and, according to the report, the average viewer would never suspect a thing. It is currently back on display in Zurich.
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