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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE SCOTTISH COLLECTION
Lot 20AR
SALVADOR DALÍ(1904-1989)Étude pour l'enfant dans 'La Madone de Port Lligat'
19 October 2023, 17:00 BST
London, New Bond StreetSold for £12,800 inc. premium
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SALVADOR DALÍ (1904-1989)
Étude pour l'enfant dans 'La Madone de Port Lligat'
signed with the artist's monogram (lower centre)
sanguine on paper
73.9 x 59cm (29 1/8 x 23 1/4in). (sheet size)
61.5 x 45.5cm (24 3/16 x 17 15/16in). (image size)
Executed in 1950
signed with the artist's monogram (lower centre)
sanguine on paper
73.9 x 59cm (29 1/8 x 23 1/4in). (sheet size)
61.5 x 45.5cm (24 3/16 x 17 15/16in). (image size)
Executed in 1950
Footnotes
Provenance
Thomas Coats Collection, 2nd Baron Glentanar, Glen Tanar.
Margaret Jean Dagbjørt Coats Collection, Glen Tanar.
Private collection, Scotland (by descent from the above).
Literature
R. Descharnes & G. Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904-1989, The Paintings, Vol. II, 1946-1989, Cologne, 2007, no. 975 (illustrated p. 441).
The present sketch closely relates to the Christ child at the centre of Salvador Dalí's La Madone de Port Lligat, currently in the permanent collection of the Fukuoka Art Museum, Japan. In reaction to the horrors of World War II, Dalí infused his Surrealist paintings with religious reverence, taking inspiration from classical Italian altarpieces. The final painting, which utilises the traditional Christian format of the Madonna and Child, replaces the Virgin with Dalí's beloved wife Gala. The setting of that work is Port Lligat, where Dalí and Gala resided after World War II, close to the former's hometown of Figueres. The gentle luminosity of the present work's sanguine medium imbues it with a tender form of spirituality, as the Christ child signifies the artist's hope for a new world, resurrected after the wounds of a long and brutal war.