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Lot Essay
Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Throughout his career, Dalí executed illustrations for many editions of classical literature, including Don Quixotte, The Divine Comedy and Macbeth. Salvador Dalí's One Thousand and One Nights, however, commissioned from the artist by the family of the present owner in the 1960s, remained unpublished until 2014. Thus this group of works offers new and exceptional insight into Dalí's original and unique relationship with classical and literary tradition, and his constant search for an avant-garde re-interpretation of myths and iconographies.
Extremely varied in its graphic style and entrancing with its dramatic imagery, Dalí’s series of illustrations for One Thousand and One Nights shows the artist’s interpretation of central figures and events in a complex and evolving narrative that may date back in its origins to the 9th Century. The stories of Scheherazade as retold in One Thousand and One Nights include some of the most recognisable images of Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and Egyptian folklore. For many hundreds of years these stories and their central characters were central to a European understanding and imagining of Arabian and Persian history and visual culture. The wide range of stories in One Thousand and One Nights enabled Dalí to create his own unique visualisation of such mythical figures as Pegasus (see lot 201), Sinbad (see lot 203), and Aladdin (see lot 202). The wide ranging geographical setting of the stories also allowed Dalí to revisit some of his own most iconic and surreal imagery – the elephant on stilts (see lot 205) as seen in his landmark 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee, or the giraffe (see lot 204) of his dramatic 1937 work in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Inventions of the Monsters.
Throughout his career, Dalí executed illustrations for many editions of classical literature, including Don Quixotte, The Divine Comedy and Macbeth. Salvador Dalí's One Thousand and One Nights, however, commissioned from the artist by the family of the present owner in the 1960s, remained unpublished until 2014. Thus this group of works offers new and exceptional insight into Dalí's original and unique relationship with classical and literary tradition, and his constant search for an avant-garde re-interpretation of myths and iconographies.
Extremely varied in its graphic style and entrancing with its dramatic imagery, Dalí’s series of illustrations for One Thousand and One Nights shows the artist’s interpretation of central figures and events in a complex and evolving narrative that may date back in its origins to the 9th Century. The stories of Scheherazade as retold in One Thousand and One Nights include some of the most recognisable images of Arabic, Persian, Mesopotamian, Indian, and Egyptian folklore. For many hundreds of years these stories and their central characters were central to a European understanding and imagining of Arabian and Persian history and visual culture. The wide range of stories in One Thousand and One Nights enabled Dalí to create his own unique visualisation of such mythical figures as Pegasus (see lot 201), Sinbad (see lot 203), and Aladdin (see lot 202). The wide ranging geographical setting of the stories also allowed Dalí to revisit some of his own most iconic and surreal imagery – the elephant on stilts (see lot 205) as seen in his landmark 1944 work Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee, or the giraffe (see lot 204) of his dramatic 1937 work in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, Inventions of the Monsters.