Peggy's Bequest

Marco Rosin is a little nervous about uprooting the lady of the house. In this case, he's not referring to the legendary art patroness Peggy Guggenheim, whose body lies buried next to those of her beloved Lhasa Apsos—including Cappuccino, Peacock and Sir Herbert—in the garden of her Venice palazzetto . Instead, on this warm June afternoon, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection registrar's charge is Alberto Giacometti's 1.5-m bronze Standing Woman , 1947, whose elegantly elongated frame appears like an apparition a few meters from Guggenheim's grave, where it usually guards the benefactress' Byzantine garden seat. "It's a beautiful work, and...