Sale: Habsburg, Feldman, Tokyo, 17th  December, 1989, lot 57
Private Collection (sale: Christie's, London, 19th June, 2007, lot 234)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Executed on cream-colored board. Minor frame abrasion is apparent to the top left and both bottom corners. The surface is a little time-darkened and there are some scuffs to its surface, including an inch-wide scuff mark between the two brown butterflies at the lower left edge. The surface is a little stained at the top center of the board. The central collage element is creased horizontally in a few places including one such line running two inches across the figure's face. There are also some faint crease lines to the board just above the central Mona Lisa image. At least one nailhead-sized dot of pigment toward the upper right corner of the composition has been lost There are some scattered studio marks toward the lower right corner. Finally paint shrinkage is apparent to the thicker blue and black lines of pigment running horizontally on either side of the central collage. Overall the work is in good condition.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

At once a self-portrait of Salvador Dalí, a photo montage of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, a nod to Marcel Duchamp’s L.H.O.O.Q. and a reference to Bartolomeo Veneto’s Flora, this collage encapsulates the great extent of Dalí's artistic experimentation.

Phillipe Halsman originally created the photomontage, titled Dalí Mona Lisa, in a collaboration with Dalí in 1954. The image was published the same year in Dalí’s Moustache, another collaboration featuring some thirty-six photos of the artist and his famous moustache. This photomontage was undoubtedly influenced by Duchamp’s own 1919 Dadist parody of the Mona Lisa, the assisted ready-made L.H.O.O.Q. Dalí went on to write about Duchamp’s “desecration” of Leonardo’s work in the article "Why they attack the Mona Lisa" of 1963, discussing it as an act of Freudian rebellion against and vandalization of traditional female idealisation. 

With the present work Dalí revisits Duchamp’s model, appropriating his face from Dalí Mona Lisa and pasting it upon a reproduction of Bartolomeo Veneto’s Flora, a portrait assumed to represent Lucrezia Borgia, the infamous illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI. Though very little is definitively known about Lucrezia, her family’s ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption have shaped a fascinating, albeit speculative, persona for her in several operas, plays and novels. Over hundreds of years she has come to symbolize the femme fatale of the Renaissance Papacy, leading some to name her 'the most depraved woman in history.' Dalí was surely captivated by her infamy and noted in her portrait a semblance to that of Mona Lisa. Aligning himself with these enigmatic icons, Dalí ultimately aggrandises himself in a witty and playful manner.