Sunday Dalí: Javanese Mannequin, 1934. Oil on canvas, 25.5 x 21.25 cm. The Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL.

Javanese Mannequin is perhaps one of Dalí’s most enigmatic paintings. The best explanation of this stark, almost study-like canvas comes from Ades and Taylor.¹ They believe that this painting is tied to the 1933 work The Enigma of William Tell. The Tell canvas set off a firestorm of political turmoil between Dalí and André Breton, the leader of the Surrealists who was also a French Communist Party sympathizer. Breton took umbrage with the portrayal of Valdimir Lenin, playing the part of Tell, but with a severely elongated buttocks. Ades and Taylor believe that Javanese Mannequin represents a doubling-down of Dalí’s intractable position. Dalí himself summed up his point stating that if he were to dream of sodomizing the Surrealist leader (Breton) he would be obliged to paint it the very next day.