The center portion of this painting shows Dalí's aging nurse Lucia sitting with her back to us, in the position of a netmender. Netmending was an important task in the Catalan fishing villages of Dalí's youth, and he associates that importance with Lucia. The hole cut from her back is a paranoiac-critical transformation whose original inspiration came from Dalí's visit to Paris in 1928. There he visited the Hotel of the Invalids, which sported windows made from mannequins with holes cut into their mid-riffs. He transforms them into the seated Lucia here, who is also shown being propped up by a crutch, here a symbol of solemnity, a wish by Dalí to support her as she grows older. Next to Lucia, to her right, are a medicine table and bottle, supposedly the 'object' that has been removed from Lucia's back. Next to that is another smaller chest and bottle, these having been removed from the first. To Lucia's left are 4 fishing boats which have been pulled up onto the shoreline. As i
