Settees play a large part in art, notably the Velazquez’ Rokeby Venus, Canova’s Pauline Borghese as Venus along with Etruscan sarcophagi from Cerveteri.
Still, as “Mae West’s Lips” by Dali demonstrated, the sofa could also be art in its own way. With Mae West’s lips Salvador Dali one of the best Surrealists, gave us one of the true icons of thirties artwork.
He was intrigued by Mae. The initial painting came in 1934. Afterward, backed financially by Edward James, the affluent patron in West Sussex who was outfitting a Surrealist building, he constructed the iconic sofa in the late thirties.
A quintet were built by skilled workers. 3 remain in the hands of the original owners, whereas another has pride of place in a private collection and the last of them rests in a museum. The very same patron paid for a lot of the greatest artifacts of Surrealism, mind you, like an item which is among Dali’s creations, namely 1936’s Lobster Telephone. His masterpiece and it would not cope with being used for too long. As a matter of fact, he had in mind a rock formation close to his residence while he evolved the design, or so legend has it — far from the surest route to ease of use.
The popularity of that inspirational sex symbol — the also a playwright under the pseudonym Jane Mast — has sadly fallen away. A revamped look found a place in the promotional material to launch 2005’s How I Met Your Mother, with the cast grouped around it.