Buste rtrospectif de femme

The present work is based on the porcelain version of 1933 where Dal had combined a number of themes already being explored in his paintings, in sculptural form. He had shown a painting in 1932 in which several inkstands were placed along a loaf of bread (see fig. 1.). He claimed to have 'invented' the use of bread as an aesthetic and useless object as opposed to it's more practical use as the 'succor and sustenance of large families' (S. Dal in R. Descharnes op.cit p. 186). The use of the bread in this sculpture is highly characteristic of the Surrealists; it was their belief to use everyday objects and place them in a in a completely alien context, such as Dal's Telephon Homard, thus showing them in a new way; 'L'objet surraliste est impraticable, il ne sert rien qu' faire marcher l'homme, l'extnuer, le crtiniser. L'objet surraliste est uniquement fait pour l'honneur, il n'existe que pour l'honneur de la pense' (S. Dal, Les Cahiers d'art, 1936). It is reported that when the porcelain version was first exhibited in Paris in 1933 (see fig. 2), the real loaf of bread which was balanced upon it, was subsequently eaten by Picasso's dog!

The figures on the inkwell mirror those of Jean Franois Millet's L'Angelus with which Dal was obsessed. It became a recurring theme in his paintings in various forms after the revival of the memory of glimpsing it from his classroom at school. The painting had an erotic and powerful influence on Dal, it's image was for him a resurgent force, setting off a series of emotions: 'Ce tableau qui produisait en moi une angoisse indtermine mais si poignante que le souvenir des deux silhouettes immobiles m'accompagna plusieurs annes durant, dclenchant toujours le mme malaise continuel et louche, ce tableau, dis-je, finit par disparatre de mon imagination, jusqu'en 1929. A cette date, j'en trouvai une autre reproduction et je fus repris par le mme malaise.' (La Vie sescrte, S. Dal, 1963)