Salvador dali
"frère jean des entommeures, ou le cardinal du bellay"
from "les songes drôlatiques de pantagruel" (the drolatic dreams …
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Salvador dali
"frère jean des entommeures, ou le cardinal du bellay"
from "les songes drôlatiques de pantagruel" (the drolatic dreams of pantagruel)
from the rarest edition of 50 only
original lithograph on japan paper
year: 1973
76 x 56 cm
hand-signed
hand-numbered 8/50
catalogue raisonné:
r.michler and l. W. Löpsinger
"salvador dali, catalogue raisonné of prints ii - lithographs and wood engravings 1956-1980" pages 155 - ref. 1413
with certificate
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history of this artwork
sometime in the 1960s, spanish surrealist artist salvador dali, already considered one of the leading artists worldwide, discovered a special book published in paris in 1565 by richard breton, as the 'last work' of the writer françois rabelais, and named it after his bestseller about the giant pantagruel. This book, "les songes drôlatiques de pantagruel", i.e. The drolatic dreams of pantagruel (where 'drolatic' means funny and amusing), consists of 120 woodcuts, each page showing a completely different figure: strange, hybrid creatures, combinations of man and animal, insect, plant and object, pot-bellied or hunchbacked, with special noses, snouts, trunks or beaks; each having a title in the end of the book.
enraptured and inspired by the new discovery, he chose 25 images and devised variations on these then four-century-old prints. These images have been printed as original lithographs at atelier grapholith in paris, and published by carpentier in geneve in 1973.
this very artwork is one meant to represent frère jean des entommeures, caricature character for cardinal jean du bellay (1498-1560)
here the original text in french (an english translation follows):
ce personnage cynique, qui montre un priape de chien, qui a le corps couvert d'une mosette et d'un capuchon, qui marche à grands pas, tenant un poignard d'une main, un couteau à scie de l'autre; dont le nez monstrueux, et porté par un anneau à ressort, rappelle ce nez enté en écusson de carême-prenant (liv. Iv, ch. Xxxi) dont parle rabelais, est le frère jean des entommeures, c'est-à-dire le cardinal du bellay, marchant au combat andouillique. Les couteaux qu'il a dans les mains sont ceux que rabelais lui donne, quand il fait dire au frère jean, dont le nez est le digne étui du sien: "je hays plus que poison ung homme qui fuist, quand il fault jouer des cousteaux", liv. I, ch. Xxxix. Le priape qu'il montre avec cynisme fait allusion à cet autre passage de rabelais (liv. Iv, chap. Xli): "frere jean, a coups de bedaines, les abbatoyt (les andouilles) menues comme mousches\.
this cynical character, who shows a dog's priapus, whose body is covered with a canvas bag and a hood, who walks with great strides, holding a dagger in one hand, a saw-knife in the other; whose monstrous nose, and carried by a spring ring, recalls that nose grafted into the shield of carême-prenant (book iv, ch. Xxxi) of which rabelais speaks, is brother jean des entommeures, that is to say cardinal du bellay, marching to the andouillic combat. The knives that he has in his hands are those that rabelais gives him, when he makes brother jean say, whose nose is the worthy case of his own: "i hate more than poison a man who flees, when he must play with knives", book i, ch. Xxxix. The priapus that he cynically shows alludes to this other passage from rabelais (book iv, chap. Xli): "brother jean, with his bellies, the abbatoyt (the sausages) as small as flies\.
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sold with certificate of authenticity, copy of the catalogue raisonné, and copy of the original woodcut and which inspired dali (we have it in our collection) this piece has an attribution mark,
i am sure that it is completely authentic and take full responsibility for any authenticity
issues arising from misattribution
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