King of Swords by Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí
1904-1989 | Spanish

King of Swords

Signed “Dalí” (lower center)
Gouache on photographic background

This unique gouache by Surrealist master Salvador Dalí combines the artist’s celebrated and singular point of view with the spiritual world of tarot. Dalí began conceptualizing an original custom-made tarot deck when he was approached by Albert Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond film Live and Let Die, who sought a tarot card deck to use in the film. Though the contract eventually fell through, Dalí continued the project of his own accord, largely thanks to the inspiration of his wife Gala, who had an interest in mysticism. 

The present gouache reimagines the traditional King of Swords card, which features a seated monarch on a throne. In Rider–Waite Tarot, the king’s throne is decorated with butterflies, and in Victorian Fairy Tarot, the king has butterfly wings himself. The King of Swords symbolizes sound intellectual understanding and reasoning and heralds a strong will and decisiveness. In its reverse meaning, the King of Swords can also symbolize being ruthless or excessively judgmental. 

Here, Dalí reimagines the card with a photographic print of the 1592-95 painting Saint Louis by the master El Greco, a famous work on view at the Louvre in Paris. The painting depicts Louis IX of France wearing 16th-century armor and a crown, holding the fleur-de-lys and the traditional scepter of the kings of France. Dalí surrounds the king with suffusive green gouache paint, adding a saintly soft focus glow to the figure. In reference to the traditional composition of the card, Dalí adds a beautiful, colorful butterfly just above the monarch’s crown. In his own unique touch, Dalí includes a small fish at the base of the king’s throne. This card showcases the myriad of iconographies Dalí engaged with when envisioning his original deck.

The Surrealist maestro drew upon a number of influences to complete the deck, which comprised 78 cards in total—22 major arcana and 56 minor. His own self-portrait served as the Magician card, while his beloved wife Gala naturally posed for the Empress. Jan Gossaert’s 1516 Renaissance work Neptune and Amphitrite was the basis for the Lovers card, while the Queen of Cups card represents a fascinating marriage of Duchamp’s iconic Mona Lisa remix, L.H.O.O.Q., with a portrait of Elizabeth of Austria. The iconography of the deck is as eclectic as one would expect from the Surrealist master; it is little wonder that it took him 10 years to complete the project.

After Dalí completed his deck, the original cards were assembled and published in a limited art edition in 1984. While a number of editions have since been printed of the cards, the present King of Swords is the artist’s original gouache creation.

Born in Catalonia in 1904, Dalí was formally educated in the fine arts in Madrid, particularly falling under the influence of the Impressionists and the Renaissance masters. He eventually grew more acquainted with avant-garde movements such as Cubism, Dada and Futurism. By the late 1920s, his mature Surrealist style had already begun to emerge, and in 1929, he officially burst onto the avant-garde art scene with his Un Chien Andalou, a short film he made with Spanish director Luis Buñuel. Today, he is remembered as one of the most legendary and significant contributors to Surrealism. His Persistence of Memory, with its melting clocks, is arguably the most recognizable painting of the movement. Two museums—one in St. Petersburg, Florida and another in Catalonia—are entirely devoted to his oeuvre; other important works by the artist can be found in the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), among many others.

Circa 1971

Provenance:
Private collection, New York
Private collection, London, acquired from the above in 2009
Private collection, Paris
M.S. Rau, New Orleans