For sale the Dalí that has remained hidden for over fifty years

A work by Salvador Dalí that remained hidden from the public for more than 50 years in the living room of a private collector ’s home has been put up for sale, following the latter’s death.

La Madona cósmica, this is the title of the painting, was made by the celebrated artist in 1958 during his mystical-nuclear period, as Dalí himself had called it, that is, the time when he was attracted to physics, biochemistry and the structure of DNA, along with religion.

He was inspired by Raphael’s Sistine Madonna by Raphael, a painter whom Dalí greatly admired: in fact, he depicts the Madonna with baby Jesus in her arms, while a beam of light seems to dematerialize them.

The work was last exhibited in New York in 1965; in fact, it remained with the private collector. Until now, only black and white images of the painting were known, and now with its entry onto the market, its color image has appeared for the first time.

One of the artist’s experts, Eliott H. King, curator of the Dalí: The Late Work exhibition held in Atlanta in 2010, said that “the revival of the painting in all its dazzling color makes it one of the most successful and elaborate d’rte works of Dalí’s postwar period.” He adds, “Raphael’s Madonna seems to disintegrate, or reintegrate, before our eyes in an explosion of cerulean blue.”

On the back of the painting Dalí had placed another title to Van Gogh’s The Cutting of the Ear, dematerializing from his frightening existentialism and exploding like a pion during the glare of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna. In this regard, King states that “Dalí recalls the medieval theologians’ hypothesis that the Virgin Mary conceived through the word of God, and thus was inseminated through her ear.”

The collector’s heirs have set up a special website cosmicmadonna.com where details, images and videos of the painting, contacts for potential buyers and expert opinions of the artist can be found.

Image: Salvador Dalí, Cosmic Madonna, detail (1958) © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres.

For sale the Dalí that has remained hidden for over fifty years

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