Salvador Dalí

Graziella Patiño de Ortiz Linares, Paris (commissioned from the artist)
Thence by descent to the present owner

New York, M. Knoedler Galleries, Dalí: April 14 to May 5, 1943, 1943, no. 6b, illustrated in the catalogue
Charleroi, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Rousseau, Robert, Salvador Dalí, 1968, no. 16
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Dalí, 1970-71, no. 71, illustrated in the catalogue
Baden-Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Salvador Dalí, 1971, no. 59, illustrated in the catalogue

'Close-up of the Dalí technique or What Sitters get for their Money', in Art News, vol. 42, 15th April 1943, p. 11
Robert Descharnes & Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí. The Paintings, Cologne, 1994, vol. I, no. 811, illustrated p. 357; vol. II, no. 811, catalogued p. 761

The canvas is unlined. There are a few small spots of retouching at the left framing edge, visible under ultra-violet light. Apart from some faint stretcher marks and some slight stable craquelure at the edges, this work is in very good condition. Colours: Overall fairly accurate in the printed catalogue illustration.
"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.
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Dalí executed Portrait of Mrs Ortiz-Linares at the height of his successful years in New York City. Having fled Paris with his wife Gala in 1940, Dalí assumed a central role amid the society of European Surrealists that had coalesced in New York at the outbreak of the Second World War. Within this context Dalí produced some highly insightful portraits, which from the late 1930s and 1940s revolved around a sophisticated play of image and meaning, brilliantly displayed in the present work and others from this period. His highly imaginative form of portraiture led him to paint many celebrated individuals including the Marquis George de Cuevas, Lady Louis Mountbatten, Helena Rubinstein and Mona von Bismarck.

The subject of the present work, Graziella Patiño de Ortiz-Linares, was the daughter of Simon I. Patiño, ‘the Tin King’ of Bolivia, who brought his family up in Madrid and Paris. In 1926 she married her childhood sweetheart and fellow Bolivian Jorge Ortiz-Linares, and their two sons Jaime and George were born soon after. The couple settled at 34 Avenue Foch which they spent years filling with important French furniture and works of art, paintings by Watteau and Fragonard, and most importantly the finest collection of 18th Century silver by the Frenchman Thomas Germain. During the Second World War the family relocated to New York where Mrs Ortiz-Linares took up a job as a nurse in a hospital in order to relieve the shortage of regular staff. On their return to Paris Jorge Ortiz-Linares resumed his role as the Bolivian Ambassador to France and entertained the world’s diplomatic elite amidst the splendour of their home on the Avenue Foch. The present work has remained in the family of the sitter until the present day.

In May 1942 Dalí wrote to the sitter giving an account of his progress with the picture: ‘I deliberately stayed very alone in New York for twelve days to finish the painting, which now only should take a week to complete. [...] I hope to return to New York in the end of May to finish it. Do not worry - I am making grand discoveries… Because of these newly acquired experiences and all of this delay it has enabled me to give the painting its last finishing touches – when this sublime artistic inspiration arrives, it can never come too late.  Anyways given this, I apologise a thousand times. […] I will send the painting to you straight away. To synthesize the third stage of this trilogy - which has left me suspended in the 18th century. Sadism, Masochism, and now Idealism’ (letter from S. Dalí to Graziella Patiño de Ortiz-Linares, May 1942, translated from Spanish).