Between the folds of time, certain works of art don't age, but rather awaken for decades. As if they had been slumbering beneath the surface of the world, waiting for the exact moment to reemerge.
Such is the case with “Sueño de sirenas” (1963), a monumental gem by Leonora Carrington, which reappears 18 years after its last public auction at Christie's New York. In 2007, the piece—part of lot 319—was acquired by a private collector in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Now, within the framework of Art Basel 2025, the enigmatic triptych enters the market again, presented exclusively by Di Donna Galleries, like a spell from the depths.
The triptych, which when opened measures 142.5 x 148.2 cm, was a secret and fascinating commission from María Félix, the great Doña, to the artist born in the United Kingdom, who had found her place and inspiration in Mexico.
Reports claim that the screen diva came to Carrington not out of vanity, but out of a deeper desire: to immortalize her dreams. Because the flesh-and-blood Maria had a mystical soul, somewhere between a diva and a deity, and she sang—literally—like a siren. There we see her not as one, but fragmented into three. One Maria of ebony, one of fire, and another of mother-of-pearl, white, like the foam that forms just before a shipwreck.
Leonora Carrington, priestess of surrealism and heir to a dreamlike pictorial language, not only understood the dream the actress had revealed to her: she brought it to the canvas with a force that makes the ground tremble beneath the viewer's feet. "A Dream of Sirens" isn't just a painting; it feels more like an altar. But instead of saints or martyrs, at its center resides the feminine in its purest form: disturbing, transformative, powerful.
“Leonora asked me how I imagined the painting, and I told her about a dream I once had. I dreamed I was at sea, appearing first as a mother-of-pearl mermaid, then as a fiery mermaid, and finally as a bronze mermaid,” Félix recounted in a video published by the Leonora Carrington Studio House at the Autonomous Metropolitan University. Carrington first met the Félix family through her then-husband, Renato Leduc, who introduced María to the artist's work while they were in Paris.
“Leonora asked me how I imagined the painting, and I told her about a dream I once had. I dreamed I was at sea, appearing first as a mother-of-pearl mermaid, then as a fiery mermaid, and finally as a bronze mermaid.”
María Felix on this dreamlike commission to Leonora Carrington.
The central figure, the pearly mermaid, seems to emerge from a vortex of white light, in a chiaroscuro that illuminates and envelops. To her left, the ebony creature—hidden, contained, almost original—; to the right, the fire creature—flaming, untamed, devastating. Together, they do not represent the media-friendly Mary, but rather what was hidden within Mary: a multiple divinity, impossible to encapsulate.
The frame, created in collaboration with sculptor José Horna, reinforces the spell. An antique gilt runs through it, while a pair of hands—emerging from each end—extend toward the viewer as if in an act of sensual possession. They don't touch, but seduce. They don't embrace, but draw. It is art made portal. First, two faces in duality (darkness/light), and upon crossing it, one stops looking and begins to dream. The form of the triptych evokes the spiritual gravity of religious altarpieces; however, instead of venerating a deity, here it is dedicated to the actress.
Raised in a strict British Catholic family, Carrington understood the religious significance of the triptychs—and the disrespect of appropriating such a motif for display in Felix's residence.
As historian Marina Warner notes in Di Donna’s text, “Carrington was influenced by the Renaissance ideal of ut pictura poesis, or storytelling through pictures, finding a natural affinity with early Renaissance artists who, like herself, dealt in miracles and transformations.” Her world of bestiaries and hybrid bodies extends the tradition of Bosch and Brueghel, while her revival of the medieval technique of egg tempera painting gives her panels a refined, Old Master sensibility.
Seeing this work in 2025, in an era marked by artificial intelligence and algorithms, is like peering into a buried mirror. It reminds us of a time when female painters in Mexico applied their brushes as if conjuring, and the actress dreamed of the claws, scales, and brilliance of other worlds. Leonora Carrington and María Félix weren't just icons: they were symbols, and they knew it. Two women who knew how to transform their concerns and desires into a mythical language, into alchemy, and with a projection into the future.
"Dream of Sirens" appears today as a living offering of that alliance between two immortal women. It's back on sale, ready to be purchased by any enthusiast of surrealist art by women for women in 20th-century Mexico.
Di Donna at Art Basel 2025 (Stand F10) will feature a vibrant selection of paintings, sculptures and works on paper by artists such as Josef Albers, Jean (Hans) Arp, Ruth Asawa, Francis Bacon, Leonora Carrington, Salvador Dalí, Enrico Donati, Lucio Fontana, Keith Haring, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, François-Xavier Lalanne, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Claes Oldenburg, Yves Tanguy, among others.