Artist bought a Giacometti chandelier for £250 in London; decades later, it sold for £2.922 million

A chandelier that an artist bought for £250 after spotting it in a London antiques shop sold for £2.922 million at Christie's in 2023, turning a chance discovery into one of the more remarkable stories of the art market. The bronze light fitting, created by Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti, had been recognised by British artist John Craxton in the late 1960s, when the shop had listed its maker as unknown. According to Christie's, Craxton paid all his savings for the piece and kept it for the rest of his life.The chandelier, titled Chandelier for Peter Watson, was sold at Christie's London auction on February 28, 2023. The final price of £2,922,000 included the buyer's premium, with the hammer price itself reaching £2.4 million. The result followed decades in which the object remained in Craxton's family home, largely away from public view. Christie's identifies the work as unique, conceived in 1946–47 and cast around 1947–49.A chance discovery in a London antiques shopCraxton, who lived from 1922 to 2009, encountered the chandelier at Elizabeth Denton's antiques shop in London's Marylebone area. Christie's recounts that he had visited intending to collect a bronze lion but struck ...