Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - La Divina Comedia- El Paraíso Canto 22 “El Angel del séptimo cielo”

SALVADOR DALÍ (1904–1989)

THE DIVINE COMEDY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI

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

Artist: Salvador Dalí (Figueres, 1904–1989)
Work: The Divine Comedy, illustrations for the work of Dante Alighieri.
Technique: Intaglio print on black ink on natural silk.
Measurements: 31.5 × 25 cm.
Edition: Joseph Forêt and Éditions d’Art Les Heures Claires.
Place of realization: Paris, France.
Silk-suite engraver: Cécile Reims.
Documented special edition: 33 suites of 100 prints on silk.

Description

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

The project originated from a commission by the Italian government to commemorate the seventh centenary of Dante’s birth. Dalí created an extraordinary cycle of 100 watercolors, corresponding to the poem’s 100 cantos, 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 graphic production that required the preparation of approximately 3,500 woodblock matrices for the color prints.

The black-and-white impressions on silk belong to a specially refined and limited modality of this editorial project. They were produced by intaglio engraving procedures, 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 the 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 makes the prints particularly valuable for collectors of Dalí’s graphic works and of the leading bibliophilic editions of the 20th century.

Bibliographic references and catalog raisonnés

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, to which the silk prints belong.

Importance of the edition

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

Its special printing technique, its restricted editorial context, and the historical importance of the cycle make these works excellent examples of 20th-century surrealist graphic art and bibliophilia.