Meret Oppenheim
Prototype 'Table with Bird's Legs', designed 1939, produced 1972
Gilded wood, bronze.
64 x 67.6 x 53 cm
Produced by Simon International, Italy.
Together with a certificate of expertise from the Nachlass Meret Oppenheim.
Footnotes:
Provenance
SIMON, Stabilimento Calcinelli, Italy, 1972
Private collection, Italy
Casa D'Aste Della Rocca, Torino, 'Design', 13 April 2017, lot 279
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited
'Eine Frau ist eine Frau ist eine Frau', Aargauer Kunsthaus, 27 August 2022-8 January 2023

Literature
Domus, no. 516, November 1972, p. 36
Virgilio Vercelloni, The Adventure of Design: Gavina, Milan, 1987, p. 127
Accademia delle belle arti di Brera, Dino Gavina Ultrarazionale Ultramobile, Milan, 1998, p. 152
Thomas Levy, Meret Oppenheim: From Breakfast in Fur and Back Again, Hamburg, 2003, pp. 120-121
Ghislaine Wood, ed., Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design, exh. cat., Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 2014, pp. 270-271

In 1972, Meret Oppenheim negotiated with the Italian furniture company SIMON the production of a multiple edition of her iconic and surrealist masterpiece the 'Table with Bird's Legs'. The Italian company SIMON produced the present prototype table with thirteen feet impressed upon the tabletop, but due to high production costs this planned mass-produced version was never executed. Instead, SIMON produced a cheaper version with only two feet impressed upon the tabletop. The production of the present table was not commissioned by Oppenheim; but it was a prototype produced by SIMON in order to present to Oppenheim the possibility of creating a mass-produced version of her art. The present prototype table is possibly the first example created after the original and is the genesis for the later and ubiquitous version produced by SIMON with only two feet imprinted upon the tabletop, an adaptation that was never approved by Meret Oppenheim.
This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: *
* VAT on imported items at a preferential rate of 5% on Hammer Price and the prevailing rate on Buyer's Premium.