Did You Know Air India Gifted Salvador Dali An Elephant For Designing Their Ashtray?

There are corporate gifts, there are luxury collaborations, and then there is the time Air India commissioned Salvador Dalí to design an ashtray and paid him with a baby elephant! 

When Air India Paid Salvador Dalí With A Baby Elephant

The story feels almost impossible to place in today’s world of brand guidelines, legal clearances and partnerships. Yet it happened in 1967, when Air India was more a travelling expression of India’s confidence, glamour and cultural ambitions.

The encounter began in New York. Jot Singh, Air India’s public relations officer, met Salvador Dalí, the wildly eccentric Spanish surrealist whose melting clocks and dreamlike worlds had already made him one of the most recognisable artists on the planet. Air India, under J.R.D. Tata, had developed a reputation for treating aviation as something grander than transportation. 

The airline collected art, commissioned designers, collaborated with cultural icons and turned its flying experience into a magical living museum. 

Jot Singh had a proposal. Would Dalí create something exclusively for Air India’s most valued passengers? Dalí said yes! 

Then emerged a small porcelain ashtray called Double Image, a piece that could have stepped straight out of one of the artist’s canvases. Inspired by his 1937 painting Swans Reflecting Elephants, the ashtray featured a shell-shaped centre encircled by a blue serpent. 

Beneath it sat sculpted forms that transformed depending on how you looked at them. From one angle, they appeared to be swans. Turn the piece around, and they became elephants. Even as an object meant to hold cigarette ash, it behaved like a riddle.

And this was no mass-market souvenir. Only around 500 pieces were produced. They were presented to select Air India passengers and distinguished guests around the world. One recipient was reportedly Spain’s former King Juan Carlos. Today, most of the ashtrays have disappeared into private collections, occasionally resurfacing through auctions and collectors.

Also Read: Did You Know The Chupa Chups Logo Was Sketched By Legendary Artist Salvador Dali?

The Bizarre Story Of Air India, Salvador Dalí And A Baby Elephant

Then came the question of payment, and Dalí did not ask for cash. He asked for a baby elephant.

According to accounts from the time, the artist wanted the animal for his olive grove in Spain. He reportedly explained that he wished to watch the moonlight filter through the trees and cast shadows across the elephant’s back. It was exactly the sort of answer one would expect from Salvador Dalí and exactly the sort of request no corporation today would know how to process.

Air India, however, did not reject it! The airline arranged for a two-year-old elephant to be transported from Bengaluru to Geneva. From there, the animal travelled by road to Cadaqués, the coastal Spanish town where Dalí lived. The elephant’s arrival became a local event. Reports describe celebrations, a public parade and even a three-day holiday declared by the town’s mayor.

For a while, Dalí imagined even grander plans. He reportedly wanted to ride the elephant across the Alps in the manner of Hannibal. The elephant grew larger, the fantasy faded, and by 1971, the animal had been moved to Barcelona Zoo.

An airline commissioned a surrealist master. The artist designed an optical illusion disguised as an ashtray. The payment involved flying a baby elephant halfway across the world.

Also Read: A Chinese Woman Recreates Famous Ancient Chinese Painting With 60Kg Chocolate!

Read that sentence again. It sounds more like something Dalí might have painted! 

Cover Image Courtesy: galeriesbartoux/Wikipedia and joybhattachrj/X

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