Salvador Dali (1904-1989) - La Divina Comedia- El Paraíso Canto 27 “Gloria Patri”

SALVADOR DALI (1904–1989)

DANTE ALIGHIERI'S THE 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 the work of Dante Alighieri.
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 realization: Paris, France.
Engraver of the suite on silk: Cécile Reims.
Special documented run: 33 suites of 100 prints on silk.

Description

Exceptional print by Salvador Dalí belonging to his renowned interpretation of Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, one of the most important artistic-illustration and bibliophilic 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 created 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 graphic production that required the preparation of approximately 3,500 woodcut matrices for the color prints.

The black-and-white silk prints belong to a specially refined and limited modality of this publishing project. They were produced using copperplate engraving techniques, 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 from the general edition printed on paper.

The use of natural silk gives these compositions a singular texture and makes the prints pieces of particular interest for collectors of Dalí’s graphic work and of the major 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, corresponding to the compositions represented in the silk prints.

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 printmaking and art publishing ateliers.

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