Lot 51

All in good condition with no visible signs of repair or damage, overall discolouration to paper consistent with age, one with minor crease to lower left edge (The Beloved is as Fair as a Company of Horses), unexamined out of frames


The opinions expressed in the condition reports are a guide only and should not be treated as a statement of fact. Prospective buyers are encouraged to inspect articles for sale at our pre-sale viewing where Leonard Joel staff are available for advice.
Leonard Joel makes no guarantee of the originality of mechanical or applied components. Absence of reference to such modifications does not imply that a lot is free from modifications.

Lutz Löpsinger & Ralf Michler, Salvador Dalí: The Catalogue Raisonné of Etchings and Mixed-media Prints, 1924-1980, Munich, Prestel, 1994, nos. 468-479

There was also an edition of 250 issued with portfolio.

One of modern society's most distinctive artistic icons, Salvador Dalí is best known for his eccentric personality and highly surreal paintings. His seminal artwork, The Persistence of Memory (1931), defies reason with its melting clocks and uncanny landscape, and embodies the driving principles of Surrealism; accessing the subconscious mind (the world of dreams) to enhance artistic creativity and subvert societal norms.

Throughout his career Dalí's works were dominated and fuelled by his relentless imagination. However, around 1941, after his move from his native Spain to the United States, his work began to incorporate a more Classical style oftentimes containing religious themes intertwined with scientific concepts, a style he called "Nuclear Mysticism". Such themes were in line with his interest in the supernatural, though it has been suggested that the change in subject matter and style reflected his fear that World War II would result in the collapse of Western civilisation and unprecedented human suffering. Regardless of the ambiguity of his underlying motives, this featuring of religious themes and characters continued until his death in 1983.

From approximately 1965 to 1979, Dalí's output largely comprised commissions of works on paper for production as limited-edition prints. He was commissioned to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy in the 1950s, and Biblia Sacra, an edition of the Bible published by Rizzoli, in 1969. In 1968, Dalí's first artistic explorations of Old Testament and Judaism occurred when Samuel Shore of Shorewood Publishers in New York commissioned the artist to produce an artwork commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel. The result is a series of works on paper (later released as limited edition prints) entitled Aliyah (meaning "migration to the land of Israel") inspired by the Old Testament and contemporary Jewish history.
Lot 51, a set of 12 etchings, also draws on themes and characters from The Old Testament, taking inspiration from Song of Songs, the last section of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh. The suite illustrates the romance between King Solomon and an unnamed, beautiful Shulamite woman. The intimacy between Solomon and the Shulamite in Song of Songs celebrates love, yearning and harmony and is often seen as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, or in Christian tradition, of Christ and his bride, the Church.

While Dalí departs from his emblematic style in these illustrations, they remain immediately recognisable as his work through certain elements, such as the dreamlike landscapes in the background of each work and the slim, elongated silhouettes. Demonstrating the artist's preoccupation with religious themes in later life, the dramatic yet sensitive drawings use fluent, radiating lines and gold dust to convey a mysticism and holiness, the entire suite presenting a compelling narrative of love and longing.

Marcella Fox | Sydney Manager

© Salvador Dali, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dali.VEGAP/Copyright Agency, 2021