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 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 that he was crafting for his brother’s sculptures. The present chair form is one of his earliest functional works. The lion’s head finials were a later adaptation.

Lee Kolker was a close friend of Diego Giacometti who had over eighty of his works in his personal collection. He gave the present lot as a gift to his daughter in 1979.