About This Artwork
Salvador Dalí
Spanish, 1904–1989
Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936
Painted plaster with metal pulls and mink pompons
38 5/8 x 12 3/4 x 13 3/8 in. (98 x 32.5 x 34 cm)
Through prior gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman, 2005.424
Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Gallery 396A
Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories
Exhibition History
Paris, 101 bis rue de la Tombe-Issoire, 19 June 1936.
Paris, 88 rue de l’Université, 2 February 1939.
Paris, Galerie du Dragon, Objet surréaliste 1931–1937, 20 October–20 December 1979, no. 10.
Paris, Musée du Louvre, D’après l’antique, 16 October 2000–15 January 2001, no. 259.
St. Petersburg, Florida, The Salvador Dali Museum, A Disarming Beauty. The Venus de Milo in 20th-Century Art, 28 April–9 September 2001, fig. 29.
London, Tate Modern, Surrealism: Desire Unbound, 20 September 2001–1 January 2002; traveled to: New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 6 February–12 May 2002, fig. 72.
Venice, Palazzo Grassi, Dalì, 12 September 2004–16 January 2005; traveled to: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 16 February–15 May 2005, cat. 156 (ill.),
Publication History
Robert Descharnes, The World of Salvador Dali (New York: 1962), p. 167.
William S. Rubin, Dada, Surrealism and Their Heritage (New York, 1968), p. 145, fig. 217.
Salvador Dali, exh. cat. (Frankfurt am Main, 1974), p. 30 (ill.).
Dalí parDalí (Montrouge, 1975), p. 73 (ill.)
Galerie du Dragon, L’Objet surréaliste 1931–1937 (Paris, 1979), no. 10 (ill.).
Simon Wilson, “Salvador Dali,” Salvador Dali, exh. cat. (London, 1980), p. 17.
Picasso/Miró/Dalí: Evocations d’Espagne (Madrid, 1985), no. 23, p. 230 (ill.).
Carlton Lake, In Quest of Dali (New York, 1990), pp. 72-74.
Franco Passioni, “Dalí dans la troisième dimension,” Salvador Dalí: Illustrateur et Sculpteur, exh. cat. (Geneva, 1992), p. 93.
Robert Descharnes and Gilles Néret, Salvador Dalí, 1904–1989, vol. I: Das malerische Werk, (Cologne, 1993), p. 279, no. 628 (ill.).
J. L. Giménez-Frontin, Teatro-Museu Dalí (Madrid, 1994) pp. 55, 57 (ill.).
Marco di Capua, Dalí (New York, 1994)
Robert Descharnes, “Dalì, la Vénus de Milo, et la persistence de la mémoire antique,” D’après l’antique (Paris, 2000), pp. 462–65 (ill.).
William Jeffett, “An Obscure Object of Desire: The Venus de Milo, Surrealism and Beyond,” Disarming Beauty: The Venus de Milo in 20th-Century Art (St. Petersburg, Florida, 2001), pp. 61-67, 83, fig. 29.
Jennifer Mundy, ed., Surrealism: Desire Unbound (Princeton, New Jersey, 2001), p. 97 (ill. only).
Robert and Nicolas Descharnes, Dalí: Le dur et le mou, Sortilège et magie des formes (Paris, 2003), no. 61, pp. 32-33 (ill.).
Dalí, exh. cat. (New York, 2004), pp.258–59, no. 156 (ill.).
Charles Stuckey, “Dalì in Duchamp-Land,” Art In America (May 2005), pp. 153–54, ill.
Ownership History
Salvador Dalí, Paris, 1936–c. 1964; sold to Max Clarac-Sérou, Paris, c. 1964–1990; sold to Patrick Derom, Brussels, c. 1990.

