Artist: Salvador Dalí
Title: Le Colosse (The Colossus), from the Aurélia Portfolio
Year created: 1972
Medium: Hand-Signed Original Engraving, with Color Aquatint, on Arches Paper
Edition: EA (Epreuve d'Artiste / Artist's Proof) of Limited Edition on Arches Paper
Height (inches): 31-1/4
Width (inches): 23
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
This piece is framed.
Includes a certificate of authenticity.
Description of piece:
This rare original engraving, Le Colosse (The Colossus), by Salvador Dalí is hand-signed and inscribed EA ("Epreuve d'artiste" - Artist's Proof), from the limited edition of only 175 numbered prints, with additional EA impressions, on Arches paper. Monochromatic and replete with exceptionally fine detailing, the work's singular touch of color has been applied with aquatint, a process by which color is applied using an etched copper plate.
Le Colosse predominates Dalí's composition, towering over the iconic Dalí'esque landscape: a pathway disappearing into the distant horizon, a backdrop of minimalist mountains in the distance, delicate clouds overhead. Two figures, rendered in red, traverse the path, hands raised to the sky, and towards the figure of Le Colosse. Dalí drew his inspiration for this engraving, and for the Aurélia portfolio, from Gérard de Nerval’s 1855 work, Aurélia, ou le Rêve et la Vie (1855), a written work which greatly influenced not only Dalí contemporaries Marcel Proust and André Breton, but Surrealism itself.
The designation "EA" is written in pencil in the lower left margin, and the artwork bears Dalí's distinctive signature, prominently, hand-signed in pencil in the lower right margin of the work.
On verso is the authentication of the work by renowned Dalí expert, Frank Hunter, written in pencil: "Authentic / Frank Hunter / Salvador Dalí Archives Ltd / 6 Oct. 2013”. The work comes custom framed and ready for display in a black gallery frame measuring 31-1/4” in height x 23” width. On the verso of the framed work, a window with hinged closure has been created, to provide and retain viewing of Frank Hunter’s authentication.
One of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”, The Colossus stood over two thousand years ago at the entrance to a busy harbor on the island of Rhodes in ancient Greece. Built to celebrate victory and freedom at the end of a long war, the people of Rhodes melted down bronze from the many war machines which had been left behind at the end of the conflict and sculpted it into a truly towering statue of their patron god Helios. Standing 110 feet in height from toe to head, and placed upon a 50-foot pedestal, the statue itself was nearly identical in height to the modern Statue of Liberty.
Catalogued in Dalí expert Albert Field's authoritative Official Catalog of The Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí, Reference 72-5 B, page 72, Le Colosse is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Created on Arches paper, Le Colosse was published by Editions d’Art de Francony, France, and printed by Ateliers Rigal, Paris, France.
Artist bio:
Salvador Dalí, born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, (1904-1989) was a prominent artist born in Figueres, Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, sixteen miles from the French border, in Catalonia. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media, and he is best known for his surrealist work, including his most well-known painting, The Persistence of Memory. Highly imaginative, Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an ancestry of descent from the medieval Moors. His individualistic nature and resistance to conformity made waves, including among his colleagues. In 1934, when Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group, Dalí retorted, “Le Surrealisme c'est moi": "I myself am surrealism".
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