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

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.