LOT 17 †

A 'Folie de la Vitesse' ('Speed Fool') mascot by Pierre de Soete, Belgian, 1921-1922,

Sold for £1,536 inc. premiumLot to be sold without reserve

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Lot 17^†

A 'Folie de la Vitesse' ('Speed Fool') mascot by Pierre de Soete, Belgian, 1921-1922,

Goodwood Revival: Collectors' Motor Cars and Automobilia|7 September 2024, 11:00 BST|Chichester, Goodwood

A 'Folie de la Vitesse' ('Speed Fool') mascot by Pierre de Soete, Belgian, 1921-1922,

signed to base, nickelled bronze mascot depicting a jester with rattle 17cm high, above a marble base applied with a Charles Lindberg (1906-1985) portrait plaque designed and made by the sculptor Oscar Nemon in 1927, 27cm high overall.

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Footnotes

'La Folie de la Vitesse' or 'Speed Fool' mascot design was awarded a prize of a diploma at the 1921 Salon de l'Auto de Paris.

Oscar Nemon (1906-1985) was famous for his series of over a dozen public statues of his friend and painting partner Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), as well as sculptures of Sigmund Freud and Field Marshal Montgomery. A student of de Soete, Nemon was heavily influenced by the Cubist and Modernist movements in Europe in the 1920s, settling near Oxford in 1938, where he continued to work until his death in 1985.
We believe this piece was a collaboration between Nemon and de Soete, and gifted to Charles Lindbergh in 1927, the year of his historic transatlantic flight. A similar plaque was gifted to the Leeds Art Gallery and Museum by the sculptor's daughter-in-law, Alice Nemon-Stuart in 2004 for the museum's permanent collection.

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