In his last works, Dali was still trying to penetrate the secrets of the old masters. He was inspired by the masterpieces of Michelangelo and Diego Velazquez. He cracked their codes, insofar as is possible even for such a genius as Dali to do so, and adapted and assimilated them into his own visual world.

One of Dali's last works, The head of the Warrior is derived from a Michelangelo' head of Lorenzo di Medici. It took Dali a long time to hit upon the idea of transforming the warrior's eyes into embozados. The embozados, a veritable institution in Castile, ware masks or hid their faces from the curious with their cloaks.