A spectre full of irony, where an amorphous, soft face appears, supported by crutches, which Dali considered his self-portrait, with a pedestal that bears the inscription of the title of the work and, above, a slice of fried bacon, a symbol of organic matter and of the everyday nature of his breakfasts in New York's Saint Regis Hotel.

Dali always remembered the piece of flayed skin with which Michelangelo represented himself in the The Last Judgement of Sistine chapel in the Vatican and argued the most consistent thing of our representation is not the spirit or the vitality, but the skin.

Usually most in farnest when dwelling on the subject of his own genius, Dali has here caricatured his public image in a spirit of gentle selfmockery. His identity is mainly conveyed by the upturned, antenna-like moustaches which made his appearance instantly memorable. Crutches are an even more familiar presence in his work, and Dali himself noted that the public, instead of growing tired of them, seemed to become more and more enthusiastic as he multiplied their numbers; so he has drawn the appropriate conclusion, using crutches large, medium and small to prop up his helplessly soft selfimage on all sides. The ants round eye and mouth also signify decay or weakness.