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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION 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and One Nights, however, commissioned from the artist by the family of the present owner in the 1960s, remained unpublished until 2014.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 characters were central to a European understanding and imagining of Arabian and Persian history and visual culture.

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Deux têtes empalées

Details

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
Deux têtes empalées
signed and dated 'Dalí 1966' (upper left)
gouache, watercolour, pen and India ink and felt-tip pen on paper
15 ¾ x 11 ¼ in. (40 x 28.6 cm.)
Executed in 1966

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist, and thence by descent to the present owner.

Literature

S. Dalí, M. Castells, M. Forcano & R. Mas Peinado, Les mil i una nits, Barcelona, 2014, p. 176 (illustrated).

Exhibited

Turin, Palazzo Bricherasio, Salvador Dalí: La vita è sogno, November 1996 - March 1997, no. 45, p. 81 (illustrated).
Bruges, Stichting Sint-Jan, Salvador Dalí: Doeken & Aquarellen, July - November 1997, no. 10, p. 87 (illustrated).

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Brought to you by

Ottavia Marchitelli

omarchitelli@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2980

Lot Essay

Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.

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