Gala Éluard, the Russian-born wife of the French Surrealist poet Paul Éluard, served as muse and lover to Max Ernst and, later in life, Salvador Dalí. It was Paul Éluard who first sought out Max Ernst in Germany, but Gala and Ernst became lovers almost immediately. Ernst moved to France and lived with the Éluards from 1922–24. This remarkable painting was made in 1924, perhaps after Gala reunited with Éluard in Saigon. It was based on a photograph of Gala’s eyes taken by Man Ray.

Signature: Signed (upper right): Max Ernst

Paul Eluard (born Eugène Grindel, 1895-1952), Paris; André Breton (1896-1966), Paris; Galerie Pierre (Edouard Loeb), Paris; Richard L. Feigen Gallery, Chicago, acquired from Loeb, by 1959; Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman, Chicago, acquired from Feigen, August 5, 1959 - her gift to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006

Max Ernst, Galerie Denise René, Paris, June 2-July 2, 1945, exh. cat., no. 8.

An American Choice: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May 21-September 27, 1981, exh. cat. by William S. Lieberman, pp. 7 (intro by Lieberman), 26 (Lieberman), 27 (ill.), 154.

Max Ernst: Dada and the Dawn of Surrealism, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 14-May 2, 1993; The Menil Collection, Houston, May 28-August 29, 1993; The Art Institute of Chicago, September 15-November 30, 1993, exh. cat. by William A. Camfield, no. 182, ill. pl. 169, p. 372.

Painters in Paris: 1895-1950, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, March 8 - December 31, 2000, exh. cat. by William S. Lieberman, pp. 98 (ill.), 123.

Abstract Expressionism and Other Modern Works: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, September 18, 2007 - February 3, 2008, exh. cat. edited by Gary Tinterow, Lisa Mintz Messinger, and Nan Rosenthal, no. 5, pp. 24-26 (ill.; essay by Sabine Rewald).

Greenwich, Connecticut: The Bruce Museum, September 27, 2008- January 4, 2009. Paris Portraits; Artists, Friends, and Lovers, cat. no. 14, pg. 96.

Werner Spies, Max Ernst - Collagen, Inventar und Widerspruch (Cologne: M. DuMont Schauberg, 1974), p. 72, ill. fig. 193.

Werner Spies, with Sigrid and Gunter Metken, Max Ernst Oeuvre Katalog, Werke 1906-1925 (Houston: Menil Foundation, and Cologne: M. DuMont Schauberg, 1975), p. 410, no. 788 (ill.).

Grace Glueck, "Met is Given a $12 Million Art Collection," New York Times, December 10, 1980, p. 21.

Anonymous, "Chicagoan Gives Art to N.Y. Museum," Chicago Sun-Times, December 11, 1980, p. 8.

Hilton Kramer, "Modernist Show Moves Met Firmly into Art of 20th Century," New York Times, May 22, 1981, p. C21.

Roberta Smith, "Spacewalk," Village Voice, June 10-16, 1981, p. 89 (erroneously called a Magritte).