Dali

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Signed Inferno Canto 3 Divine Comedy

1960Best.-Nr. SAD0011960 Original 10 ¼" x 13" wood engraving in a 20 ¼" x 23" frame. Signed by Dalí in red and signed again in pencil. Original color wood engraving of the boatman Charon crossing the Acheron printed on BFK Rives paper with a deckled bottom edge blindstamp of the editor J. Estrade of Les Heures Claires to lower left matted in white and in a black frame. Fine. Overall a striking work by the great Spanish artist. In 1951 the Italian government commissioned Salvador Dalí to create 101 watercolor illustrations for Dante's The Divine Comedy to celebrate the 700th anniversary of the great Italian author's birth. The decision to hire Dalí who was Spanish and a self-proclaimed "Surrealist void of all moral values" was controversial and the government eventually dropped the commission. Nevertheless Dalí deeply inspired by Dante's masterpiece continued creating watercolors finally completing the project in 1959. Dalí struck a deal with his friend French publisher Joseph Forêt of Les Heures Claires to turn the watercolors into engravings for a lavish illustrated edition of The Divine Comedy. Two master engravers spent five years 1959 - 1964 reproducing the watercolors into wood engravings a process that required roughly 3500 wood blocks around 35 for each print. Three limited editions of Dalí's illustrated version of the Divine Comedy were ultimately released between 1960 and 1974: 4765 in French 3188 in Italian and 1000 in German. In all the project took more than a decade and is now recognized as one of Dalí's most towering achievements. Salvador Dalí 1904 - 1989 was an influential Spanish surrealist artist best known for paintings including The Persistence of Memory 1931 The Elephants 1948 and Cabaret Scene 1922. Dalí illustrated a number of famous literary works throughout his career including Dante's The Divine Comedy Cervantes' Don Quixote Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Shakespeare's Macbeth. The Divine Comedy Dante's allegorical masterpiece describes Dante's journey with the poet Virgil through Hell Purgatory and Heaven. The narrative poem is regarded as one of the greatest works of literature and helped standardize the Italian language as we know it today. Influential modernist poet T.S. Eliot wrote in an essay "Dante and Shakespeare divide the modern world between them; there is no third." Inferno Canto III opens with an inscription on the gates of hell: "Abandon all hope ye who enter." Dante and Virgil pass through the gate and encounter the boatman Charon who ferries souls to the opposite shore. . Fine. Illus. by Dalí Salvador. Lithograph. unknown