Salvador Dali, Pantagruel or Henry II from Les Songes Drôlatiques de Pantagruel, Original Large Lithograph, 1973

Salvador Dali
"Pantagruel, ou Henri II" (Pantagruel, or Henry II, king of France)
from "Les Songes Drôlatiques de Pantagruel" (The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel)
from the rarest edition of 50 only

Original Lithograph on Japan paper
year: 1973
76 x 56 cm ca
Hand-signed
Hand-numbered 8/50

Catalogue Raisonné:
R.Michler and L. W. Löpsinger
"Salvador Dali, Catalogue Raisonné of Prints II - Lithographs and Wood Engravings 1956-1980" pages 155 - ref. 1402

With Certificate

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HISTORY of This Artwork

Sometime in the 1960s, Spanish surrealist artist Salvador Dali, already considered one of the leading artists worldwide, discovered a special book published in Paris in 1565 by Richard Breton, as the 'last work' of the writer François Rabelais, and named it after his bestseller about the Giant Pantagruel. This book, "Les Songes Drôlatiques de Pantagruel", i.e. The Drolatic Dreams of Pantagruel (where 'Drolatic' means funny and amusing), consists of 120 woodcuts, each page showing a completely different figure: strange, hybrid creatures, combinations of man and animal, insect, plant and object, pot-bellied or hunchbacked, with special noses, snouts, trunks or beaks; each having a title in the end of the book.
Enraptured and inspired by the new discovery, he chose 25 images and devised variations on these then four-century-old prints. These images have been printed as original lithographs at Atelier Grapholith in Paris, and published by Carpentier in Geneve in 1973.

This very artwork is one meant to represent Pantagruel, i.e. also Henry II, king of France.

Here the original text in French (an English translation follows):

Cette figure martiale, mais souffrante, faisant le gros dos, dans l'excès de sa douleur, coiffée d'une toque ou bonnet domestique, très chaude-ment vêtu, ayant une bavette sous le menton, retirant avec sa main droite une sonde profondément enfoncée dans le priape, tenant de la gauche une houlette, et chaussée de pantoufles bordées d'hermine, est le grand Pantagruel, c'est-à-dire Henri II, souffrant de la maladie galante, comme son père, dans le nº précité. Rabelais dit, liv. II, chap. XXIII: "Peu de temps après, Pantagruel tomba malade... lui print une pisse chaulde, qui le tourmenta plus que ne penseryez."
La houlette qu'il tient de la main gauche an-nonce que l'amour avoit fait déposer à ce roi galant le sceptre pour la houlette de berger. "Le roi Henri II, dit Brantôme, t. VIII, p. 62, a aimé comme a fait le roi son père, et s'est adonné aux dames".

This martial but suffering figure, arching his back in the excess of his pain, wearing a toque or domestic cap, very warmly dressed, with a bib under his chin, withdrawing with his right hand a probe deeply embedded in the priapus, holding a crook in his left, and wearing slippers trimmed with ermine, is the great Pantagruel, that is to say Henry II, suffering from the gallant disease, like his father, in the aforementioned No. 11. Rabelais says, Book II, Chapter XXIII: "Shortly after, Pantagruel fell ill... he took a hot piss, which tormented him more than you would imagine."
The crook he holds in his left hand announces that love had made this gallant king lay down his sceptre for the shepherd's crook. "King Henry II," says Brantôme, vol. VIII, p. 62, "loved as his father the king did, and devoted himself to the ladies."
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Sold with certificate of authenticity, copy of the catalogue raisonné, and copy of the original woodcut and which inspired Dali (we have it in our collection)