Original drypoint etching with stencil from the series “La Fontaine’s Bestiary Dalinized”

Title: “The Monkey and the Leopard”

Hand-signed by Salvador Dalí and numbered: LXXXIX/CXX (89/120)

Luxury edition of 120 pieces, printed on Vélin Richard de Bas paper in 1974

Size: 93 x 73 cm

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Artwork Essay

Salvador Dalí stages a visual confrontation between two opposing forms of pride: one of appearance, the other of intellect. The leopard, traditionally admired for his beauty, becomes in Dalí’s world a fluid and coiled creature — beautiful, but trapped within his own decorative image. The monkey, by contrast, is more grand, detailed and animated. Dalí does not simply illustrate the fable — he distills its psychological essence. True to the moral of La Fontaine’s tale — “beauty is rather superficial and the mind holds greater value” — Dalí sides with the monkey. But he also complicates the message: even intellectual pride can become a costume, another performance.

Moral: what we boast of, whether the surface or substance, may all be masks and have no dignity. However, ever-changing and developing mind (substance) always remains more significant.