Lot Essay
“Standing Nana with Serpent is a late sculpture, offering the viewer a neoclassical Pop experience… she is a tabletop figurine that straddles both high and low culture. Her marble body emulates a classical statuette, but Saint-Phalle’s cheeky figuration and bold colors are a nod to doll collecting and, by extension, a commentary on social relations between men and women, casting women as staid decorative objects placed in the domestic sphere" (J. Sorkin, "Niki de Saint Phalle's Standing Nana with Serpent," Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, 2009, p. 101).