“Gala and I incarnate the sublime myth of the Dioscuri, hatched from Leda’s two divine eggs.” — Salvador Dalí

Across Salvador Dalí’s surreal universe, one shape appears again and again: the egg. Suspended, broken, mirrored, monumental, or barely there—it is one of the most enduring motifs in his work. He sculpted it, staged performances inside it, and built his iconic home in Port Lligat beneath a series of giant white eggs perched along the roofline like watchful relics.

Why the obsession?

In Dalí’s world, the egg is far more than a form. It is a vessel of dualities: soft and hard, fragile and impenetrable, sacred and absurd. For Dalí, the egg symbolized birth, love, and purity, often referencing Christian iconography and classical painting. He called it “the sublime myth,” a symbol of cosmic origin and eternal return.

It was also deeply personal. Through his so-called “intrauterine egg theory,” Dalí claimed to remember life inside his mother’s womb—a recurring theme in his paintings that blends surrealism with psychological introspection. The egg, in this sense, became a portal to both past and potential, charged with resurrection and memory.

In one of the artist’s most theatrical gestures, he and his muse Gala staged a beachside performance, breaking out of a giant sculpted egg as if reborn—a living tableau of creation, mythology, and spectacle. A broken version of this egg still rests in the garden of their home, like a relic of their surreal love story.

From early canvases where eggs symbolized hope and fertility, to later works such as Child Watching the Birth of the New Man—where a figure hatches from an egg-shaped void—Dalí used this simple form to mirror complex truths: about life, about the divine, and about becoming.

At Marquisate, we too are drawn to the egg—not only for its universal symbolism, but for its ability to hold paradox, story, and silent potential. It is at once ancient and modern. Real and imagined. A shell of beginnings.