Salvador Dali Signed "Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire" 21x29 Original Surrealist LE Lithograph on Rives Paper #86/300 (PA LOA)

Rare limited edition lithograph on BFK Rives paper printed in France in the early 1970s. From the 1940 painting "Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire". Lithograph measures 21.75" x 29.75" in size. Hand-signed and numbered 86/300 in pencil by Salvador Dali. Features a watermark (see photo). Note, lithograph has a few very minor creases. Lithograph includes a Pristine Auction LOA for authenticity purposes.

Explanation of the Surrealistic Art By Paul Chimera:

Dali Historian (Mr. Chimera worked directly with Dali Museum founder Reynolds Morse, as the publicity director of the original Dali Museum when it was located in Beachwood, Ohio)

If the one painting that instantly comes to mind when you mention Salvador Dali is his 1931 “Persistence of Memory,” with its famous melting watches, the work that springs to mind after that may well be “Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire,” with its remarkable double-imagery.

Dali was fascinated all his life with optical illusion, inspired in part by viewing the works of Arcimboldo of the 16th century. Visual puns and hidden images struck a chord with Dali, and his masterly painting technique allowed him to execute this visual phenomenon with razor-sharp precision.

Perhaps no other example of double-imagery in Dali’s art is as perfected and well-known as that in “Slave Market.” In the center of the canvas you’ll see an archway, under which several people appear. Two women, side by side and dressed in black and white outfits, become integral to the sudden appearance of the bust of Voltaire. Each of the women’s heads becomes an eye of Voltaire, while the front of their garments forms his nose, cheeks and chin. The distant space seen through the archway becomes Voltaire’s head.

 

Do you see it? Squinting your eyes sometimes helps.

Dali’s wife Gala, naked from the waist up, gazes nonchalantly at the scene, as if to give us a clue that we too should ponder the central elements of the painting. What’s fascinating with brilliantly executed double-images like this one is how you cannot really see both images at the same time; either you see the two women standing together under an archway, or you see the bust of Voltaire atop a foreground pedestal.

Dali’s illusion is so superbly achieved here that Scientific American magazine – which Dali himself read religiously – used the image in an important article on the science of optics. And the work has appeared in other science books as well, serving as a great example of optical illusion.

But hold everything…there’s a secondary double-image in “Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire.( French Philosopher)” Look at the fruit dish or compote at the middle right of the picture. We see what could be, from left to right, an apple and a pear in it. That is, until we realize that the apple also serves as the backside of a woman behind it! The pear, meanwhile, is simultaneously part of the mountains in the distant right. 

Dali must have been proud indeed of achieving the fascinating effect in his Voltaire illusion. So proud, in fact, that he used it in two other important paintings. The Voltaire double-image appears in the far middle distance in “Resurrection of the Flesh” of 1945, and in his 1970 masterwork, “The Hallucinogenic Toreador.”

Of the many things that can be said about Salvador Dali, two are indisputable: he possessed a technical skill reminiscent of the great masters, and he was a modern-day master of the double-image. “Slave Market with Disappearing Bust of Voltaire” was its usual hit with Dali connoisseurs in the 2012-2013 Dali retrospective at the Centre George Pompidou in Paris.

The work of Salvador Dali (1904-1989) is associated with the surrealist movement of the 20th Century. A diverse and multi-talented artist, Dali is considered one of the most collected artists today, and his works offer an incredible opportunity for enormous appreciation in value. In addition to his original works, Dali produced works on paper for reproduction using dry point, etching, woodcut, and lithography. Many of his works are held in prestigious private and public collections world-wide.

Authentication: Pristine Auction LOA (details)

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