The Dalí paintings of Cadaqués easiest to see are Figure at the Window (1925, Museo Reina Sofía), showing the bay from the house at Es Llané; The Great Masturbator (1929, Reina Sofía) and The Persistence of Memory (1931, MoMA), with rocks of Cap de Creus; and Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951, Kelvingrove, Glasgow), with the bay of Portlligat.
Dalí painted Cadaqués as a young man, when it was the place his family spent the summer, and he kept painting it once he was famous: the bay, a cove, the rocks of the cape. Those paintings are now scattered across Figueres, Madrid, New York, Glasgow, Bern and private collections. This guide brings together the ones with a verifiable record, says where each one is and from which spot in the village you can see, more or less, what he saw.
Cadaqués: all the guides and where to stay →
The early sketches: one named cove and several unnamed views
The catalogue raisonné of paintings published by the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí lists several landscapes of Cadaqués painted before 1927. The most specific is Cala Sa Conca. Cadaqués, from around 1918: a small oil, 28.4 by 37.5 centimetres, in a private collection. The entry explains that it is one of the many sketches of the Cadaqués landscape that Dalí made before 1920. Here the title already tells you where to stand: the cove of Sa Conca, south of the village.
There are two paintings called Landscape of Cadaqués, both from around 1921. One, 31 by 34 centimetres, belongs to the Fundació itself in Figueres, and in 2002 it came back to the village for the exhibition «Dalí i Cadaqués: llum, color i vida» at the Museu de Cadaqués. The other, 39.5 by 51 centimetres, is in the Kunstmuseum Bern, bequeathed by Georges F. Keller in 1981. The entries do not say where they were painted from, and we are not going to make it up.
From the end of that period comes Landscape of the Port of Cadaqués, 1926, in a private collection: he showed it at his exhibition at the Galeries Dalmau in Barcelona, between December 1926 and January 1927.
The window at Es Llané: Figure at the Window (1925)
This is the Cadaqués painting easiest to see in a public museum. Figure at the Window, 1925, oil on papier-mâché, 105 by 74.5 centimetres, is in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, in room 205.06 according to the museum's website as checked in October 2026. The museum describes it as perhaps the most important of the paintings of Anna Maria, the painter's sister, who is shown from behind looking out of the window at the landscape of the bay of Cadaqués.
The window was that of the family's summer house by the sea. The house stood on the beach of Es Llané, south of the old town, as our guide to Anna Maria Dalí and the one on Lorca in Cadaqués explain. To recognise the painting, stand on that beach and look towards the village: still water, the curve of the shore and the houses behind. The painting hung at his first solo exhibition, at the Galeries Dalmau, in November 1925.
The rocks of the cape: The Great Masturbator (1929) and The Persistence of Memory (1931)
In 1929 the landscape stops being a postcard and turns into dream material. The Great Masturbator, catalogued by the Fundació as Face of the Great Masturbator, is an oil of 110 by 150 centimetres that now hangs in the Museo Reina Sofía as part of the Dalí bequest. According to Wikipedia, the large face in profile at the centre is based on a natural rock formation at Cap de Creus, by the sea. The Catalan Wikipedia goes further and places it on a rock of the island of Culleró, opposite the cove of the same name, in the Tudela area, though in the conditional: «s'hauria inspirat».
The same head reappears two years later in The Persistence of Memory, the painting with the soft watches. It is far smaller than people imagine: 24.1 by 33 centimetres. It is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, MoMA, through a donation in 1934. The English Wikipedia explains that the craggy rocks on the right represent the tip of Cap de Creus.
To see those rocks you have to go to the cape. The place where they make most sense is the Tudela area, near the lighthouse, which our guide to walking to Cap de Creus describes with its animal shapes.
The bay of Portlligat: the 1951 Christ and the two Madonnas
When Dalí settled in Portlligat in 1930, the bay outside his house became the background of many of his paintings. The best known is Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 1951, an oil of 205 by 116 centimetres in the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow. Below the Christ, seen from above, lies a calm bay with a boat and fishermen: the bay of Portlligat. According to Wikipedia, the director of Glasgow's museums, Tom Honeyman, bought it in 1952 for 8,200 pounds, and it went on display on 23 June that year.
The Madonna of Port Lligat exists in two versions, with Gala as the model for the Virgin and the coast of Portlligat in the background. The first, from 1949, measures 49.5 by 38.3 centimetres and is in the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University in Milwaukee. The second, from around 1950 and much larger, is in the Fukuoka Art Museum in Japan.
Here the spot to recognise the landscape is the beach of Portlligat, opposite the house-museum: the bay almost closed off by the island in these paintings is the one described in our guide to the island of Portlligat.
If you want to see them in person
In Spain, the Museo Reina Sofía holds two of the paintings on this list. For Figure at the Window the museum's website gives a room; for The Great Masturbator we could not find the current room on its website, so it is worth asking before you go. The rest are in New York, Glasgow, Bern, Milwaukee and Fukuoka, or in private hands. Loans to temporary exhibitions are common: the Glasgow Christ, for instance, spent five months in England in 2022, on loan to The Auckland Project, according to Wikipedia.
Checked
Facts checked in October 2026 in: the catalogue raisonné of paintings of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (entry for each painting) and its page on the Salvador Dalí House in Portlligat; Museo Reina Sofía (entry for Figure at the Window and artist page); Spanish and English Wikipedia (article on each painting) and Catalan Wikipedia (Paratge de Tudela).
Quick questions
Which Dalí painting shows the bay of Cadaqués?
Figure at the Window, 1925: his sister Anna Maria, seen from behind, looks out at the bay of Cadaqués from the family's summer house at Es Llané. It is in the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid.
Where is The Persistence of Memory?
In MoMA in New York, through a donation in 1934. It measures 24.1 by 33 centimetres, and the rocks on the right represent the tip of Cap de Creus.
Which Dalí painting shows the bay of Portlligat?
Christ of Saint John of the Cross, 1951, in the Kelvingrove museum in Glasgow: below the Christ lies the bay of Portlligat with a boat and fishermen. So do both versions of The Madonna of Port Lligat.