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Dalí's attempt to create with the brush those images suggested by dreams and hallucinations are perhaps the most characteristic aspects of Dalí's early work. His painting The Persistence Of Memory (MoMA, New York) in which soft watches are draped over various objects, is probably the best-known work of the Surrealist movement. Artistically very prolific, Dalí created not only works in an academic sense of the word, but lent his creativity to projects in advertising, fashion and jewellery design, glass and china design, stage design and magazines. The latter particularly became an important source of inspiration for him during the 1940s. By the 1950s Dalí's work had a considerable commercial value, especially in the United States, where the artist had lived from 1940 to 1948. Although he had returned to Europe by 1950, his popularity and success still boomed in America. Dalí worked together with Alfred Hitchcock on the film 'Spellbound' featuring Gregory Peck and Ingrid Bergman, where he did the stage sets for the dream sequence. While this might have had a hampering influence on other artists, with Dalí it appears to have been the opposite. His endless artistic output was not compromised by the commissions he received but brought new stimulations to the fore. The following four works by Salvador Dalí were commissioned from the artist in 1958. The patron, a New Jersey based pharmaceutical company which at the time was called Wallace Laboratories, became famous for a drug called Miltown, a tranquilizer. Dalí was the ideal artist for the present commission. Being interested in the subconcious and the rendering of our mind in dreams and hallucinations, lent itself perfectly to the theme of medication which ultimately would do precisely that: bring the mind to a different stage of reality. Dalí titled the series of these four works Crisalida, and wrote about the series: 'Crisalida paints tranquility. The outer structure of Miltown is that of a chrysalis, maximum symbol of the 'vital nirvana' which paves the way for the dazzling dawn of the butterfly, in its turn the symbol of the human soul. Inside, organic forms appear in forced perspective showing the surrealist pattern of harmonious life. The first figure, by its tormented colloidal roots, portrays human anxiety. The second symbolizes the chyrsalis on its way to being transformed, a metamorphosis directed toward a harmonious tranquility which 'hatches' into the third image - the flowery headed maiden, true butterfly of tranquillity'. In Crisalida, Dalí presents us with an allegory, one of his favourite concepts back from his Surrealist days. Even in this very specific commission, the image refers to something else; Dalí does not represent the different aspects and levels of consciousness in any abstract way, but instead he personalises them into a woman, the eternal feminine, which probably of all subjects fascinated him most in his life and work. PROPERTY FROM AN AMERICAN CORPORATION

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

La Promenade: figures et papillons

Details

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)
La Promenade: figures et papillons
signed and dated 'Dalí 1958' (lower centre)
watercolour, gouache, paper collage, pencil on paper
29 x 39in. (73.7 x 99cm.)
Executed in 1958

Provenance

Commissioned from the artist by the present owner in 1958.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

Lot Essay

The authenticity of this work has kindly been confirmed by Robert Descharnes.

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