Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Vecchio Sultano; an illustration for Tales from the One Thousand and One Nights, 1966
signed and dated 'Dali 1966' (lower left)
watercolour, felt-tip, and gouache on paper laid to canvas
38 x 29cm;
sold with COA from Mr Nicolas Descharnes

Salvador Dalí was never content to leave his reputation to others. Just as he shaped his public identity through flamboyance and shameless provocation, he also engineered opportunities to insert himself into the great literary and artistic traditions of Europe and beyond. One such of these projects was his commission to illustrate Tales from the One Thousand and One Nights - a venture that combined his fascination with the Arab world, his love of opulence, and his personal insistence on a Moorish heritage. Although the project was never completed, the rare surviving works are a powerful demonstration of Dalí’s ability to unify his Surrealist vision with Classical texts.

Known as Dalí's "Italian Family", in 1963, devoted patrons Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto had organised for Dalí to illustrate a series of books for Turin-based publisher, Rizzoli. The first of these projects was to be the Bible - a choice reflecting the devout Catholicism of the Albarettos. After completing his suite of 105 watercolours (and corresponding lithographs) for the Biblia Sacra commission, Dalí insisted that his next project for the couple would be The 1001 Nights, believing it better suited his tastes and interests.

The 1001 Nights originated as early as the ninth century and brought together tales from Arabic, Persian, Indian, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian traditions. Although the exact content may differ between cultures, all versions of the anthology share the narration of Scheherazade, who is telling the stories to her husband, the villainous Sultan Shahryar, as part of a larger, overarching narrative. Possibly depicted in the present work, Sultan Shahryar, enraged by the betrayal of his first wife, had engaged on a three-year-long campaign of terror, in which he would take a new wife every night, only to execute her the following morning. Attempting to save her sister from this terrible fate, Scheherazade volunteered herself as the Sultan's next wife. That evening, Scheherazade begins telling the Sultan a fantastical tale, only to leave it unfinished. Enthralled by her stories of sailors, thieves, princesses and genies, the Sultan continues to defer Scheherazade's execution, night after night, until he eventually pardons her.

Everything about the Tales appealed to Dalí - from their sensual excess to their fusion of myth and folklore. More pertinently, perhaps, Dalí was convinced that he had Arab blood, which lent the commission an irresistible autobiographical dimension. Dalí’s insistence on his Arab origins was not just a passing claim. Throughout his life, he had repeatedly asserted that the family name Dalí was of Moorish descent. In his 1942 autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, he even suggested a personal connection to Dalí Mami, a notorious sixteenth-century pirate. No evidence supports this claim, yet Dalí asserted that his lineage could be traced back to the Moors who invaded Spain in 711 CE. He attributed his love of gold, his taste for oriental clothing, and his apparent ability to tan deeply in the sun to this alleged ancestry. He even suggested that his landscapes were shaped by inherited memories of the deserts of North Africa, citing his 1936-37 work, Perspectives, as an example. Whether or not these claims were true, they provided Dalí with a potent narrative that heightened the mysticism of both his art and his mystical lore (and indeed, lure). Despite his many fantastical claims, there is some reason to believe Dalí’s surname did, indeed, have Arabic roots, as variants of “Dalí” appear throughout the Muslim world, from Morocco to Tunisia and Algeria. Further, the word appears in Catalan as a derivative of the Arabic for 'guide' or 'leader'.

By 1966, Dalí had produced one hundred watercolours for the suite, each depicting characters and episodes from Scheherazade’s series. Despite having been contracted for five hundred illustrations, the project was mothballed just one-fifth of the way through. Of the one hundred completed works, half remained with the Albarettos and eventually to their daughter (and Dalí's goddaughter), Christiana. The other half were passed to the intended publisher, Rizzoli. Although most of the Rizzoli quota was lost or damaged, few were miraculously salvaged. It is believed that the present lot was from the Rizzoli share. The series was not published until 2014, almost half a century later, making it one of the most elusive chapters in Dalí’s long career as an illustrator of classical texts, which also included Don Quixote, The Divine Comedy, Macbeth, and The Odyssey.

The 1001 Nights commission brought together several strands of Dalí’s identity: his pursuit of prestige through literary projects, his attraction to oriental splendour, and his self-fashioned Arab lineage. In these works, Dalí is not simply interpreting Scheherazade's tales, but is also crafting his own legend.

The present lot has been kindly authenticated by Mr Nicolas Descharnes and will be accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity.