Étude pour le portrait de la vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles (Study for Portrait of the Viscountess Marie-Laure de Noailles), 1931–32 'circa'

Executed circa 1931–32. Robert Descharnes
has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

During the late 1920s, the French aristocratic couple Vicomte Charles and
Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles, renowned for their avant-garde tastes,
purchased several works by the young Salvador Dalí, including his 1929
painting Le Jeu lugubre. They would
go on to also fund the Surrealist film L’Âge
d’or (1930), directed by Luis Buñuel and co-written by Dalí. This early
patronage allowed Dalí and his wife, Gala, to establish a home and studio in Port
Lligat in the artist’s native Catalonia. Executed in pen and ink with pencil,
this delicate preparatory sketch was made for an elaborate portrait of the
Vicomtesse Marie-Laure, which was later meticulously rendered in oil. Dalí’s
loop-like composition contains several recurring elements from his Surrealist
oeuvre. These include elongated Louis XV spoons alluding to the theme of
consumption, and a small clock tucked into a cut-out niche. Within the
circular border sits a Swiss cheese-like boulder with cavities, while water
flows from a trompe l’oeil crack in the wall, passing both figurative and
floral elements to create a fountain-like effect set within a perspectival
stage.