Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - La Divina Comedia- El Infierno Canto 34 “La Aparición de Dite”

SALVADOR DALÍ (1904–1989)

DANTE ALIGHIERI'S DIVINE COMEDY

Luxury edition — Black-and-white engravings on silk — Paris, 1959–1964

Artist: Salvador Dalí (Figueres, 1904–1989)
Work: The Divine Comedy, illustrations for Dante Alighieri's work.
Technique: Copperplate engraving in black ink on natural silk.
Measurements: 31.5 × 25 cm.
Edition: Joseph Forêt and Éditions d’Art Les Heures Claires.
Place of creation: Paris, France.
Engraver of the suite on silk: Cécile Reims.
Special documented print run: 33 suites of 100 prints on silk.

Description

Exceptional print by Salvador Dalí belonging to his celebrated interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, one of the most important artistic and bibliophilic illustration projects of the 20th century.

The project arose from a commission by the Italian government to commemorate the seventh centenary of Dante’s birth. Dalí produced an extraordinary cycle of 100 watercolors, corresponding to the 100 cantos of the poem, reinterpreting Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise through his unmistakable surrealist universe.

The French edition was developed in Paris by Joseph Forêt and Éditions d’Art Les Heures Claires, between 1959 and 1963, with an elaborate graphics production that required the preparation of approximately 3,500 woodcut matrices for the color prints.

The black-and-white silk impressions belong to a specially refined and limited modality of this editorial project. They were produced using copperplate engraving processes, preserving the intensity of the drawing, the delicacy of the contours, and Dalí’s extraordinary imagination.

A historical catalog of the luxury edition documents the production of 33 suites on silk, executed by French engraver Cécile Reims. These prints constitute a differentiated modality of the general edition printed on paper.

The use of natural silk gives these compositions a singular texture and renders the prints pieces of particular interest for collectors of Dalí’s graphic works and the major 20th-century bibliophilic editions.

Bibliographic references and annotated catalogs

1. Ralf Michler and Lutz W. Löpsinger
Salvador Dalí: Catalogue Raisonné of Prints, Volume II — Lithographs and Wood Engravings, 1956–1980. Prestel, Munich, 1995.
Reference nos. 1039–1138.

2. Albert Field
The Official Catalog of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí. The Salvador Dalí Archives, New York, 1996.
Pages 189–200.

Both publications document the graphic cycle of The Divine Comedy, corresponding to the compositions represented in the silk prints.

Importance of the edition

The luxury edition on silk constitutes one of the most singular testimonies of the ambitious collaboration between Salvador Dalí and the great French studios of engraving and artistic publishing.

Its special printing technique, its limited editorial context, and the historical importance of the cycle make these works outstanding examples of surrealist graphic art and bibliophilic endeavors of the 20th century.