Salvador Dalí

Henry Bryan, New York (acquired directly from the artist)
Private Collection (a gift from the above; sale: Christie's, New York, 13th May 1992, lot 306)
Guy Pieters Gallery, Knokke
Acquired from the above by the present owner in the late 1990s

Robert Descharnes & Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalì, The Paintings 1904-1946, Germany, 1993, vol. I, no. 850, illustrated in colour p. 376 (without measurements)
Robert S. Lubar, The Salvador Dalí Museum Collection, Boston, 2000, fig. 8, illustrated p. xiv

Executed on card laid down on illustration board. The central leg is the collage element which has gouache highlights, and there is some glue residue around it; the gouache on the thigh shows a hard crease, some rubbing to the pigment and some craquelure (all visible in the catalogue illustration). There are scattered tiny fox marks in the background. The sheet is slightly time darkened. The line is strong and the work is generally in good condition. Colours: the watercolour on the work is more sanguine/orange and less yellow in tone.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A preparatory drawing for a Bryans Hosiery advertisement published in the March 1945 issue of Vogue, Composition à la jambe is a humorous play on commercial visual culture. This work was executed during Dalí's prolific sojourn in the United States in the 1940s, regularly working for magazines such as Town and Country and Harper's Bazaar. Using appropriated imagery from music-hall postcards and photographs of legs set within a typical Surrealist landscape, Dalí successfully combines some of his most iconic artistic themes and motifs.

The luscious legs are set 'against a baroque background of drawn and watercolour arabesques, curves, soft shapes and undulations resembling organic forms. Such shapes matched the evolution in Dalí's painting at the time, an evolution based on a certain iconographic exuberance and a notable organicism in the form, which [Dalí] termed, and not without a touch of humour, a 'return to the classic canon' (Fèlix Fanés, Dalí. Mass Culture (exhibition catalogue), CaixaForum, Barcelona, 2004-05, p. 142).