DALI (Salvador). - Lot 97

DALI (Salvador). Suite des planches pour La Divine comédie de Dante. [Paris, Les Heures claires, 1959-1963]. - 100 plates 330 x 262, in matted sheets, publisher's blue, red and purple folder and slipcase. Precious 3-volume suite containing reproductions of the 100 color watercolors created by Salvador DALI (1904-1989) to illustrate Dante's Divine Comedy. Under the direction of Jean Estrade for Les Heures Claires, master engraver Raymond Jacquet, assisted by Jean Taricco and Paul Bassin, undertook the titanic task of transposing Salvador Dalí's 100 watercolors for The Divine Comedy into a series of woodcuts between 1959 and 1963. Each watercolor was broken down into its chromatic components, requiring the creation of a separate wood block for each color - sometimes more than 30 per image. The process began with the precise transfer of the original drawing to the block, using lithographic techniques, followed by an absolutely rigorous burin engraving. Each stroke had to perfectly match the nuances and contours of Dalí's works, under his watchful, exacting eye. A total of 3,500 blocks were engraved, each one inked and pressed with millimetric precision to reproduce the richness of the watercolors. The alignment of the colors, the depth of the incisions and the quality of the paper were essential to obtain prints of exceptional fidelity and beauty. This suite on Rives vellum, with the artist's signature in the plate, whose exact edition is not specified, was not designed to accompany the 6 volumes of text; it was sold separately. A perfectly preserved copy.