Salvador Dali, Inferno Canto 20, 1970, Signed Engraving

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Inferno canto 20 : diviners and sorceres engraving by salvador dali. It describe a scene of the divine comédie de … Read more Inferno canto 20 : diviners and sorceres engraving by salvador dali. It describe a scene of the divine comédie de dante : and striking his head, he said: "i am thrown down here to suffer the flatteries of my tireless tongue".

in 1950, the italian government commissioned dali to illustrate dante alighieri’s divina commedia (1307) for a publication to mark the 700th anniversary of dante’s birth.dali made 101 watercolours (1950 - 1959) illustrating each of the 100 cantos of dante’s masterpiece plus one title page. But the italian public was indignant that a spaniard was to illustrate the work by their great national poet, it had to be done by an italian.

dali then presented his 101 watercolours to the french printer jean forêt, who agreed to publish the divina commedia text in french with dali's illustrations. To this end, the watercolours needed be made suitable for printing.
it took 50 months (april 1959 - november 1963) to engrave the about 3500 woodblocks: on average 35 blocks were needed to render the rich colour palette of each of the 101 watercolours.
the work was published in 1970 in a print run of 4765 copies at the publishing house les heures claires. The complete set consists of 12 volumes: 2 for each of the three parts inferno, purgatorio and paradiso and 6 full sets of decompositions.

this engraving is signed and numeroted 6/30 at the back.
frame dimensions :
h : 19,7 inch
w: 16,5 inch. This piece has an attribution mark,
i am sure that it is completely authentic and take full responsibility for any authenticity
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