This haunting composition is a high quality hand painted reproduction of Dali’s original artwork created in 1938 also titled Spain. This particular oil painting was described by the artist in his autobiography The Secret Life of Salvador Dali published in 1942. In which he explains this vision of a ghost-like woman leaning somewhat provocatively upon a dusty night stand is symbolic of the Spanish Civil War. This shadowy figure was inspired by the Italian warriors depicted during the Renaissance (Condottieri) and the background scene by Leonardo Da Vinci’s Study of Horsemen in Combat created circa 1503.

"Throughout all martyrized Spain rose an odor of incense, of the burning flesh of priests, of spiritual quartered flesh, mixed with the powerful scent of the sweat of mobs fornicating among themselves and with Death." - Salvador Dali

In 1938 Dali met Freud. Spain is indeed a passionate art work revealing the artists great vision. The scene reflects a time in Spanish history of major conflict. This piece along with several other notable artworks created in 1938 (including Head of a Woman Having the Form of Battle) were first exhibited to friends and socialites in 1939 at the artists home and studio on the rue de la Tombe-Issoire in Paris: At which Dali’s mentor and one of the few artists he highly respected, Picasso, was the first to arrive. And Spain was the oil painting Picasso specifically asked to view. Indeed, Spain has to be among Dali’s most notable if not personal renditions.