Representative image of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. (Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons)
The print, titled Purgatory Canto 32 , was part of Dalí’s illustrated series, which was based on Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy .
A woodcut print by Salvador Dalí turned out to be an authentic work after being found among donated artwork by Wendy Hawkins, a volunteer at Hotline Pink Thrift Shop in Kitty Hawk, according to Smithsonian Magazine.
The project began in 1957, after the Italian government commissioned Dalí to produce illustrations to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Dante’s 1265 birth; however, in 1965, the decision was met with much opposition. In the subsequent years, Dalí completed 100 watercolours and translated Dante’s literary world into a visual language. Dalí had offered the completed works to the French publishing company Les Heures Claires and in 1965, they were released as a limited-edition of prints inside a six-volume edition of the Divine Comedy . It took an artistic team five years to carve the wooden blocks for the collection, while each watercolour required between 20 and 37 blocks, allowing the printed versions to reproduce the detail of Dalí’s original illustrations, according to Smithsonian Magazine. Following the discovery, the print was sold to a couple for $1,200, and the proceeds went to a nonprofit organisation.
Because donated items in thrift shops sometimes arrived without any information, according to Michael Lewis, executive director of Outer Banks Hotline, the artwork’s earlier ownership remained unknown. As a result, the shop could not establish how the Dalí print had entered its collection or how long it had remained in private ownership. The idea of appointing a Spanish artist to illustrate a celebrated work of Italian literature didn’t sit well with the government, so they withdrew the commission, but Dalí continued his work. The pictures encapsulated the dreamlike symbolism which was a hallmark of Dalí’s Surrealist art; for instance, one illustration depicted a fallen angel looking down at a body from which five open drawers protrude. The reproductions were produced by a process called wood engraving, which required carefully carved wooden blocks to transfer the illustrations onto paper. The Kitty Hawk discovery was one of these reproductions rather than an original watercolour painting.
