DALI SALVADOR: (1904-1989) Spanish surrealist artist. An 8vo half-title page removed from an ...

DALI SALVADOR: (1904-1989) Spanish surrealist artist. An 8vo half-title page removed from an edition of Dali’s novel Hidden Faces, signed and inscribed in black fountain pen ink by the artist, ‘Pour la Marquise et Marquis de la Falaise, Hommage tres afectueux de Salvador Dali’ and dated 1945 in his hand. To the upper right corner of the page Dali has added an original pen and ink drawing in his hand, the intricate image depicting a horse rider, with spear in hand, galloping towards a small hill, above which floats a mysterious object, and with a shooting star in the skies. Again signed (‘Salvador Dali’) by Dali in a miniscule hand immediately beneath the drawing. The printed title of the novel has also been inked over in Dali’s hand. Irregularly trimmed to the left edge and with some light overall creasing and damp staining, G

Henry de La Falaise (1898-1972) Marquis de La Coudraye. French nobleman, translator, film director, producer, actor and war hero. The Marquis was married three times, to the film actresses Gloria Swanson (from 1925-32) and Constance Bennett (from 1931-40) and lastly to the Colonbian socialite Emma ‘Emmita’ Rodriguez Restrepo de Roeder (from 1940 until his death).

Hidden Faces (1944) was Dali’s only novel and describes the intrigues of a group of eccentric aristocrats whose extravagant lifestyle symbolises the decadence of the 1930s. Variously set in Paris, rural France, Casablanca and Palm Springs, the characters include the Comte de Grandsailles and Solange de Cleda (who pursue an ultimately doomed love affair) as well as aging widow Barbara Rogers, her bisexual daughter Veronica, Veronica’s sometime lover Betka, and a disfigured United States fighter pilot, Baba.