Dali met Freud in London on July 19^th 1938, accompanied by Zweig, who later wrote that the two, “devoured each other with their eyes”, as the painter could speak neither German nor English. 

Dali then began to draw some sketches of Sigmund’s head in which, however, a snail was also depicted at the same time.

As he continued with the drawing, Freud, turning to Zweig exclaimed in German: 

“this guy is really a fanatic. Now I understand why there is civil war in Spain… if it is populated by such individuals!”. 

After this statement, which Dali obviously did not understand, Zweig tried to discourage the painter from showing that drawing to Freud, so as to avoid shocking him.

Dali ended up keeping that first drawing and he and Zweig took their leave, and despite the little success of that meeting, Dali continued to esteem Freud and portray him in other later works, such as the 1968 etching, Psychoanalysis: Freud. 

Salvador Dali, who had a “divine” respect and admiration for Sigmund, was eating a plate of escargot (snails), sitting in a café in the region of Sense in France, when he read in the newspaper the news of Freud’s departure for London.

Dali would say: 

“I uttered a loud cry. I had just that instant discovered the morphological secret of Freud! Freud’s cranium is a snail! His brain is in the form of a spiral – to be extracted with a needle!”

“The Secret Life” 1941 Salvador Dalí

This sculpture recalls Dalí’s 1937 oil painting Burning Giraffe, and unites two of his favorite motifs: female figure with drawers and fire. The female figure here is composed largely of flames.

These inextinguishable flames represent burning passion spreading from the feet upwards.

Rising flames modelled in bronze give the impression that the whole figure is consumed by fire and seems to have a life of its own. The woman’s physical appearance acquires a new perspective: crutches support her arched body and she is compartmentalized by drawers. Influenced by Freud’s theories, drawers were used by Dalí to symbolize the unconscious.

As Dalí once said “The human body is full of secret drawers that can only be opened by psychoanalysis”. Originally the figure was completely curved backwards. Mr Beniamino Levi recounts Dalí throwing the wax model to the floor in a moment of rage when he suggested straightening the bust slightly. Without Gala’s help in reasoning with Dalí, the sculpture would not exist as it does today in this expressive, intimate form.

The melting clock is the most recognizable Dalinian image and the artist chose to portray it consistently throughout his lifetime.

Dalí became obsessed with the concept of time and used the melted watch image in many of his works. Dalí brings to this sculpture a dynamism, where the clock appears to be literally “dancing”.

Unrestrained by the rigid laws of a watch, time, for Dalí, moves to the rhythm of a perpetual dance, speeding up, slowly down, stretching out, liquefying.

Some say that Dalí represents in his watches Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity of space and time; the dancing watch illustrating the concept of movement through time.

The Dance of Time III is presented alongside Dance of Time I and Dance of Time II.