DETAILS
Year :devised in 1977, first cast in 1984
Height: 90.5 cm
Material: bronze
Technique: lost-wax
Edition Size: 350+35 EA
Patina: blue
Maquette: original gouache “Alice in Wonderland” 1977
References Descharnes: Dalí: The Hard and the Soft, Sculptures & Objects. Eccart, 2004. pg. 243 ref. 624

 

DESCRIPTION
In 1968 Dalí was commissioned to illustrate an edition of the Alice in Wonderland book. Dalí chose to represent Alice as a girl with a skipping rope, an image which first appeared in his oeuvre in the 1930’s and was used in numerous oil paintings such as Morphological Echo (c.1935). For Dalí, Alice is the eternal girl-child who responds to the confusion of this nonsense world with the naivety and innocence of childhood. Here, Dalí created Alice’s silhouette holding a skipping rope frozen in motion above her head, her hands and hair blossoming into roses, symbolizing feminine beauty and eternal youth. The crutch symbolizes stability, it gives her emotional support, acting as a link back to reality.