Salvador Dalí

Sara María Larrabure, New York
Thence by descent to the present owner

This painting is in very good condition. The canvas is lined. The paint layer has been cleaned and varnished. No further conservation is necessary. The paint layer is secure and only a few retouches have been applied in a diagonal line in the center of the gray landscape on the left side. To the right of the figure there is what appears to be an original pentiment which is slightly grayer than the surrounding area of pigment; this extends to above to the side of the shoulder by the tree. There are other quirky little spots and marks that are attributable to the artist's technique, for instance in the elbow of the dress in the lower center and beneath her hands where the color is slightly speckly. The slightly spotty texture is also visible in some of the clouds, however, it is also original. The painting should be hung as is. The above condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The current portrait offers a brilliant illustration of Dalí's artistic preoccupations during the 1960s and 70s. The artist's post-War works were outstandingly individual and society portraiture occupies an important position in his later oeuvre. The subject of this stirring and enigmatic portrait is the author and collector Sara María Larrabure.  Dalí was commissioned to paint Mrs. Larrabure after she approached him at the St. Regis Hotel, where they were seated at adjoining tables during dinner on her birthday, February 17th, 1962.  The Dalís met Sara and her family at the door, while waiting for a taxi.  After that first meeting she sat for the artist on a number of occasions during 1962 in her New York apartment.  The portrait was finished in 1963.

The sitter was considered a very beautiful, refined and cultured woman who defied many of the conventions of her time.  She was one of the very few women of her class who went to the oldest university of the Americas, San Marcos University, graduating first in her class.  She sat for another prominent artist of her day, Jose de Creeft, who sculpted her visage into a bust (see fig 1).  An aristocrat and author, she traveled extensively, lived life to the fullest and surrounded herself with the best that the world could offer, and her joie-de-vivre, plain in her knowing expression and twinkling eyes, was likely irresistible to the eccentric painter. 

After World War II, Dalí consciously disassociated himself from the Surrealists and developed an individual style that is unmistakably unique in the canon of 20th century art. Though his Surrealist tendencies are certainly present in these later works, as in the background landscape of the current work, Dalí focused his artistic concerns away from abstraction towards a return to the techniques of the Old Masters. He effectively fused the avant-garde trends of Surrealism with an eloquence of artistic execution. The formality and naturalistic attention to detail in his portrait of Sara Larrabure, for example, is offset by the fantastical dreamscape that surrounds her. Dalí described his effort to refute the tendencies toward abstraction that dominated Modern art in The Secret Life of Dalí: "The whole modern effort that had been accomplished during the Post-War period was false, and would have to be destroyed. Inescapably there must be a return to tradition in painting and in everything. Otherwise spiritual activity would quickly become nothingness. No one knew how to draw any more, or how to paint, or how to write... The empty and pseudo-philosophic gossip of café tables was increasingly encroaching upon honest work in studio and workshop. And the goddesses of inspiration, instead of continuing to occupy their Parnassus imagined and painted by Raphael and Poussin, were expected to come down into the street and ply the sidewalk trade and give themselves over to the libertinism of all the more or less popular assemblages" (Salvador Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, Plymouth, Great Britain, 1948, p. 285).

Fig 1 Jose de Creeft, Bust of Sara María Larrabure, Bronze, Private Collection