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Lot Essay
The present work is the second of Dalí's two reinterpretations of Diego Velásquez's celebrated depiction of the Spanish royal household, Las Meninas. Here, Dalí pares its figures down, chiefly retaining the contours of their fashionable dress. Its pendant painting, The Maids-in-Waiting (Las Meninas; A) (fig. 1; Descharnes, no. 1176), replaces the iconic figures entirely with whimsical numbers, the figure "7" notably repeated three times.
There, Dalí replaces Velásquez, who had placed himself alongside the monumental canvas-in-progress, with an elongated number "7". The number had special significance for the artist as his late namesake elder brother died at age 7--or so Dalí held throughout his life. Reynolds Morse, whose superlative collection of works by the artist forms the nucleus of the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, discovered the true dates for his brother's brief life--he in fact died 22 months after his birth--though the artist insisted on his version.
In the present composition, Dalí appears to explore the physical numerical possibilities of the court figures, particularly the titular "ladies-in-waiting" flanking the Infanta Margaret Theresa--the kneeling María Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor at left adopting the arabic fifth numeral's slope, the stiffly attentive Isabel de Velasco taking on the fourth's straightened form and the object of their devotion, the Infanta herself, the outlined proportions of an elegent figure eight.
(fig. 1) Salvador Dalí, The Maids-in-Waiting (La Meninas; A), 1960.
There, Dalí replaces Velásquez, who had placed himself alongside the monumental canvas-in-progress, with an elongated number "7". The number had special significance for the artist as his late namesake elder brother died at age 7--or so Dalí held throughout his life. Reynolds Morse, whose superlative collection of works by the artist forms the nucleus of the Dalí Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida, discovered the true dates for his brother's brief life--he in fact died 22 months after his birth--though the artist insisted on his version.
In the present composition, Dalí appears to explore the physical numerical possibilities of the court figures, particularly the titular "ladies-in-waiting" flanking the Infanta Margaret Theresa--the kneeling María Agustina Sarmiento de Sotomayor at left adopting the arabic fifth numeral's slope, the stiffly attentive Isabel de Velasco taking on the fourth's straightened form and the object of their devotion, the Infanta herself, the outlined proportions of an elegent figure eight.
(fig. 1) Salvador Dalí, The Maids-in-Waiting (La Meninas; A), 1960.