'Lustre avec femme, homme et oiseau' depicts Giacometti's famous austere figures caught in an unknown drama.

Commissioned in 1949 in the aftermath of World War II, the sparse figures represent the vulnerability of the human condition.

The work is unique, and therefore all the more valuable, becuase it depicts all of the artists' key motifs in a single piece.

The item will be auctioned as part of Sotheby's London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 28 February, and is expected to fetch between $10 million (£6 million) and $14 million (£8 million).

Image: 'Lustre avec femme, homme et oiseau' by Alberto Giacometti. Image supplied by Sotheby's.

Thomas Bompard, Head of Sotheby’s London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sales, said, "This beautiful chandelier by Alberto Giacometti is the tangible coming together of visual arts, decoration and theatre."

Despite's the artist's "natural tendency for introversion", "he was sought after by patrons, dealers and fellow artists, collaborating with the likes of modernist playwright Samuel Beckett to capture the fragile but powerful beauty of what hadn’t been destroyed by the Second World War."

Though only one of the chandeliers was made at the time of the original commission, another three bronzes were cast from the plaster years later, one of which was donated to the Centre Georges Pompidou.

Bompard described the work as "much more than a chandelier: it is a beacon of universal symbolism, of hope and humanism."

Would you pay $14 million for this work? I would.

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