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Igor Mitoraj — Testa Addormentata (Amnesty International)
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The Testa Addormentata (Sleeping Head) keychain pendant is one of the rarest objects in Igor Mitoraj's catalogue — a small silver pendant created by the sculptor for Amnesty International, bearing his signature on the reverse alongside the inscription amnesty international. It is not a bronze sculpture or a numbered edition in the conventional sense, but a unique collectible object that bridges Mitoraj's art with one of the twentieth century's most significant human rights organisations — and it is extremely scarce in the secondary market. This page now documents a matching pair — two examples of the pendant, patiently sourced from separate private sales and photographed side by side.
About the Testa Addormentata Pendant
The Testa Addormentata — Sleeping Head — belongs to a recurring theme in Mitoraj's oeuvre: the head in repose, neither fully present nor fully absent, caught in the liminal state between consciousness and dream. In his large bronzes, sleeping heads appear across numerous works; in this miniature silver pendant, the same form is compressed into an object meant to be carried and touched — worn as a keychain or displayed as a small sculpture.
The connection to Amnesty International places this object in a specific context of solidarity and witness. Mitoraj, himself a product of post-war displacement — born in 1944 in Germany of Polish and French parentage, raised under Communist Poland — had a personal understanding of political imprisonment and the vulnerability of the human body to state power. The sleeping head, in this context, is not merely an aesthetic motif: it is a figure of the prisoner, the detained, the silenced — those on whose behalf Amnesty International campaigns.
Testa Addormentata — Object Details
Obverse: sculptural relief of the sleeping head in Mitoraj's characteristic style — the rounded, smoothed form of a reclining face with eyes closed
Reverse: Mitoraj signature incised or stamped, with amnesty international inscription
Fitting: keychain ring attachment at the top of the pendant
Material: silver (exact purity not confirmed — test before purchase if important)
Scale: small, designed to be worn or carried — pendant body approximately 3–5 cm in the longest dimension
The rarity of this object in the secondary market makes it difficult to price from auction comparables. It has not, to my knowledge, appeared at any of the major European auction houses that regularly sell Mitoraj bronzes. Its value to a comprehensive collector of Mitoraj's work is therefore as a singular document of the sculptor's engagement outside the conventional art market.
Mitoraj and Amnesty International
The Testa Addormentata pendant represents Mitoraj's participation in a tradition of artists creating objects for charitable and advocacy organisations — a practice with precedents in the work of Picasso, Miró, and many twentieth-century European sculptors who considered their public profile an instrument of political engagement. For Amnesty International, whose emblem is a candle burning behind barbed wire, the sleeping head is a natural symbol: the consciousness that endures despite imprisonment, the human interiority that no detention can extinguish.
The precise date of the commission and the total number of pendants produced are not documented in the publicly available Mitoraj catalogue. Examples appear very rarely, typically through private sale or estate dispersal rather than through auction channels. Two examples now sit side by side in this collection (see photographs 13–17 below), a coincidence made possible only by patient search across dispersed private sales — and, to my knowledge, the first pair to have been publicly photographed together. The final photographs show the pair in context alongside Mitoraj's gilt-bronze miniature Corazza and Torso Bijou studies, giving a rare comparative view of the sculptor's small-scale output. If you have encountered another example of this pendant, or have documentation of the commission, I am very interested to hear from you.
Photographs — Testa Addormentata Pendants
The Testa Addormentata in Mitoraj's Broader Practice
The sleeping head appears in Mitoraj's work across scales and materials. In bronze, it is represented by the large Testa Addormentata sculptures that have appeared at public installations and auction — notably at Canary Wharf, London, and at several Italian piazze. In marble, sleeping head forms recur across the Pietrasanta studio's output. The small silver Amnesty International pendant is the most intimate and politically contextualised version of the motif.
This miniature scale changes the relationship between viewer and object fundamentally. The monumental Testa Addormentata at Canary Wharf commands a public space; the Amnesty International pendant fits in a pocket. One addresses crowds; the other addresses individuals. Both express the same underlying conviction: that the sleeping, vulnerable, enclosed human consciousness is the ultimate subject of Mitoraj's art — and the ultimate object of political solidarity.
Collector Notes
For completeness-oriented collectors of Mitoraj's work, the Testa Addormentata pendant is one of the most interesting objects to acquire — precisely because of its rarity and its departure from the conventional bronze sculpture format. It documents Mitoraj's engagement with applied objects and charitable commissions, a dimension of his career that is underrepresented in the major catalogue literature.
Authentication is straightforward: the reverse inscription is specific enough that a genuine example cannot easily be misidentified. The silver surface should show age-appropriate patination. The keychain fitting should be consistent with the pendant's apparent age. I buy examples in any condition, with or without the original keychain.
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Any other Mitoraj work also welcome — any subject, condition, or format.
See also: Tête Secrète (sleeping/enclosed head) · Centurione II · All Mitoraj bronzes · Auction prices
About This Collection
This site documents one private collector's search for works by Igor Mitoraj (1944–2014) — the Polish-French sculptor celebrated for his fractured classical figures in bronze and marble. Mitoraj studied in Kraków under Tadeusz Kantor, trained in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, and established his permanent studio in Pietrasanta, Tuscany in 1983. His work is held in public collections across Europe and the Americas, and his auction record — €6.89 million for a monumental Tindaro Screpolato at Sotheby's Paris in 2019 — places him among the most sought-after post-war European sculptors. If you have a Mitoraj work available, please use the contact button to get in touch.
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