Two-color/monochrome lithograph from the color series: "Pantagruel's Funny Dreams," signed lower right: "Dalí" (in pencil), copy mark lower left: "E A" (in pencil), edition of 25; inscription from the plate lower right within the composition: "DALÍ", 73.3 x 49.6 cm in frame (Japanese handmade paper)
Bibliography: Michler, R., Löpsinger, L. W., "Salvador Dalí, Catalogue Raisonné of Prints II: Lithographs and Wood Engravings 1956–1980," Munich, New York, 1995, no. 1414, p. 155 (b/w ill.).
This series constitutes the artist’s thoroughly surrealist interpretation of Richard Breton’s 16th-century illustrations for François Rabelais’s satirical masterpiece about the adventures of two giants—Gargantua and Pantagruel. By redefining Renaissance woodcuts, Dalí imbued the figures with a profound, psychedelic, and grotesque dimension, drawing heavily on erotic and hybrid motifs as well as the paranoiac-critical method.
The composition depicts an anthropomorphic figure in a fanciful mushroom-shaped hat, balancing on the back of a stylized creature resembling a crocodile with predatory teeth. The work captivates with its precise linework, contrasting dark background, and the Spanish master’s characteristic lightness of form, which blends humor with provocation.
