Name: The Souls On Jacob's Ladder 1
Brand: Damien Hirst
Rating: 5 (231 reviews)

Track auction value trend

Damien Hirst's The Souls On Jacob's Ladder 1 (signed) is an intaglio print from 2007, with an estimated value of £8,500 to £13,000. This artwork has shown consistent value growth, with an average annual growth rate of 4%. This is a rare work, having been sold 3 times at auction since its entry to the market in June 2010. In the last 12 months, the average selling price was £11,237, across 2 total sales. Over the past five years, the hammer price has varied from £8,000 in October 2024 to £14,474 in April 2024. The edition size of this artwork is limited to 72.

Auction Date

Auction House

Location

Hammer Price

Return to Seller

Buyer Paid

October 2024

Christie's London

United Kingdom

April 2024

Christie's New York

United States

June 2010

Phillips New York

United States

Meaning & Analysis

The Souls On Jacob’s Ladder 1 is an intaglio print from Damien Hirst’s The Souls On Jacob’s Ladder Take Their Flight series from 2007. The print shows a large yellow butterfly with its wings outspread, set against a black backdrop. Hirst’s use of the flattened, black backdrop creates a striking print that synthesises aesthetic and scientific modes of representation.

Fascinated by the symbolism that the butterfly holds across the globe, much of Hirst’s artistic oeuvre is dominated by the motif. Behind the intricate appearance of the beautifully rendered butterfly is a tragic set of meanings; their three-day life span reminding the viewer of the fleeting and fragile nature of life itself.

Hirst is notoriously ambivalent with his subject matter and brings themes of love and death into dialogue with one another. Partly explaining why he is so enthralled by butterflies, Hirst has said, “I love butterflies because when they are dead they look alive.” The appearance of life that the butterfly retains in death lies at the heart of Hirst’s aesthetic interests that are concerned with the distance between the beautiful image of the butterfly and the insect in real life.

Damien Hirst, born in Bristol in 1965, is often hailed the enfant terrible of the contemporary art world. His provocative works challenge conventions and his conceptual brilliance spans installations, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring themes of mortality and the human experience. As a leading figure of the Young British Artists (YBA) movement in the late '80s, Hirst's work has dominated the British art scene for decades and has become renowned for being laced with controversy, thus shaping the dialogue of modern art.