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Artist: Salvador Dalí
Title: Zebulun (from The Twelve Tribes of Israel Suite)
Year created: 1972
Medium: Original Etching, with the addition of Color by Stencil
Edition: XXVIII / XXXV (28/35) Hand-Signed Limited Edition on Paper
Height (inches): 30-1/4
Width (inches): 23
Depth (inches): 1
Signed by the artist
Signed Area: front
This piece is framed.
Description of piece:
To commemorate the 25th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Salvador Dalí created the elegant and poetic “Twelve Tribes of Israel” suite in 1972.
This beautifully colored original etching by Salvador Dalí, Zebulun, is from this magnificent suite in which Dalí worked with the themes of exile and return; mythology; icon and faith, using the techniques and aesthetic that appear in his wide and complex oeuvre.
In the Old Testament, the Tribe of Zebulun (which translates as “dwelling; habitation; home”) was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. It is considered to be one of the ten lost tribes. In his Twelve Tribes of Israel suite, Dalí created new, or refashioned, icons for each of Jacob's brothers— the 12 tribes of Israel.
Following the conquest of Canaan by the Israelite tribes in the Book of Joshua, Joshua allocated the land among the twelve tribes. The territory Zebulun was allocated was at the southern end of the Galilee, with its eastern border being the Sea of Galilee, the western border being the Mediterranean Sea, the south being bordered by the Tribe of Issachar, and the north by Asher on the western side and Naphtali on the eastern.
In Dali’s highly detailed rendering, the Tribe of Zebulun is symbolically depicted within a boat upon the sea. This work is replete with delicate detailing and masterful composition. Subtle blues complemented by tawny golds, yellows and pale orange form the color palette, punctuated with the precise black of the etching; color has been added by stencil.
Sails fly high above the boat, while sea birds accompany the boat on its journey. Upon the deck are three iconic Dali-esque figures, while in the foreground an exquisitely rendered whale swims within the blue waves of the sea.
The work is hand-signed by Dalí, in pencil, within the lower right margin, below the artwork’s image area. The edition number XXVIII / XXXV (28 of the very small edition of 35) is also hand-written in pencil, lower left.
The artwork has been newly custom framed and is ready for display in its black gallery-style frame, with double matting in cream and sea blue. Framed size measures 30-1/4" in height x 23" width.
Catalogued in Dalí expert Albert Field's authoritative Official Catalog of The Graphic Works of Salvador Dalí, Reference 72-6 H, page 78, Zebulun was created by Rigal, and published by Transworld Art, New York and Fribourg, Switzerland.
The original plates for Zebulun were destroyed by boring 4 holes in each. Only 35 Roman Numeral suites were created in English and Hebrew, on Rives paper and one suite on Japon. The total tirage (including all paper types) is 460 + proofs. The work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity.
Artist bio:
Salvador Dalí, born Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech, (1904-1989) was a prominent artist born in Figueres, Spain, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, sixteen miles from the French border, in Catalonia. Dalí's expansive artistic repertoire included film, sculpture, and photography, in collaboration with a range of artists in a variety of media, and he is best known for his surrealist work, including his most well-known painting, The Persistence of Memory. Highly imaginative, Dalí attributed his "love of everything that is gilded and excessive, my passion for luxury and my love of oriental clothes" to an ancestry of descent from the medieval Moors. His individualistic nature and resistance to conformity made waves, including among his colleagues. In 1934, when Dalí was subjected to a "trial", in which he was formally expelled from the Surrealist group, Dalí retorted, "le Surrealisme c'est moi": "I myself am surrealism".