The Madonna of Port Lligat

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The Madonna of Port Lligat
Salvador Dalí, 1949
Oil on canvas
48.9 × 37.5 cm, 19¼ × 14.76 in
Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Madonna of Port Lligat is the name of two paintings by Salvador Dalí. The first was created in 1949, measuring 49 x 37.5 centimetres (19.3 x 14.8 in), and is now housed in the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Dali submitted it to Pope Pius XII for approval, which was granted. Dalí created a second painting in 1950 with the same title and same themes, with various poses and details changed, measuring 144 x 96 centimetres (57.7 x 37.8 in); as of 2004 the 1950 Madonna is exhibited by the Fukuoka City Art Gallery, Japan.

The paintings both depict a seated middle-aged Madonna (posed by Dalí's wife, Gala) with the infant Christ on her lap. Both figures have rectangular holes cut into their torsos, suggestive of their transcendent status. They are posed in a landscape, with a view of Port Lligat, Catalonia seashore in the background, with various surrealist details, including nails, fish, seashell, egg, and bread. The 1949 Madonna has a sea urchin; the 1950 Madonna has a rhinoceros and additional figures of angels, also posed by Gala. A poem and book based on The Virgin of Port Lligat by Fray Angelico Chavez, was selected as one of the best books of 1959 by the Catholic Library Association

In the science-fiction novel Protector, by Larry Niven, a reproduction of The Madonna of Port Lligat is chosen as the personal ornamentation of the spacesuit belonging to Jack Brennan, a miner from the Belt who encounters an alien and is himself transformed into a hyper-intelligent, hyper-powerful protector of the human race.

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