Salvador Dali’s largest painting to go to auction

This month, Salvador Dali’s largest painting ever—a massive 65-by-100-foot stage—will go up for auction in Paris. The work comes from a private collection and will be part of Bonhams’ fourth annual Surrealist sale on Thursday, March 26. The work is expected to fetch €200,000 to €300,000 ($236,000 to $350,000).

Dalí designed a 13-panel set for the Surrealist work “Bacchanale” for the Ballet Russe de Monte-Carlo, for which he also wrote the libretto. Key collaborators include Léonide Massine, choreographer and director of the Ballets Russes; Coco Chanel designed some of the costumes and accessories; and Prince Alexandre Schervachidze, the Ballets Russes’ legendary scenic designer, oversaw the production of the sets at the company’s studio in Monte Carlo.

The ballet premiered at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York in November 1939. Dali was unable to attend in person due to the war in Europe, and Chanel refused to send her clothing. Despite this, it was well received and subsequently toured the United States.

Synonymous with Surrealism in the public imagination (to the chagrin of its founder André Breton), Dalí is best known for his Surrealist paintings and fetishistic objects, such as his 1938 lobster phone. He defines Bacchanale as his first paranoid-critical ballet, referring to his self-invented “paranoid-critical method” – which involves inducing himself into a state of paranoid delusion – which he uses to create his own images.

The set is painted with near photographic precision, with Mount Venus (Mt. Venus near Eisenach) as the central image. Behind it lies the vast plain of Ampurdan, a rocky wasteland near Dalí’s birthplace in Spain, with the temple in Raphael’s 1504 painting in the distance. Marriage of the Virgin.

The sale will also feature paintings and works on paper by European Surrealist masters such as Leonor Fini, Valentin Hugo, Jane Graverol, André Masson, Man Ray and Francis Picabia. Highlights will include Dating in the aira c. Grafleur’s 1945 painting (estimate: $30,000-45,000) and a collection of 11 drawings and works on paper by Picabia, including Polonaisean oil on panel from 1940, from the old collection of Olga Picabia (estimate: $230,000-350,000).