Maternite aux Oiseaux (motherhood of birds) is one Dalí's many interpretations of the Virgin Mary. Here he has chosen to paint her in probably the most common scene, with her holding the infant Jesus. Throughout history, artists have painted the Virgin Mary as they imagined her, the success of their paintings was dependent on how close their image of her was to the public's imagination. In later years Dalí was to use Gala's face or a face after Raphael (as seen in Raphaelesque Head Exploding). In Maternite aux Oiseaux, Dalí has chosen to use a double image to form Mary's face.
    By 1942 Dalí was gradually moving away from Surrealism toward his "nuclear-mystic" period, but he still employed visual illusions and double images such as those seen in the 1929 painting, The Invisible Man. The double images in Maternite aux Oiseaux are much simpler than those used for The Invisible Man. Mary's face is formed by the group of birds, while part of her body is loosely formed by the sea, with only her foot and the hand holding baby Jesus painted realistically.

    André Breton, the leader of the Surrealists, gave Dalí the unsavory nickname of Avida Dollars, an anagram of his name meaning "greed for money", because of what he and other Surrealists saw as Dalí's disregard for art in favor of profit. This drawing, from about 1944, was part of a commission to design an advertisement for a hosiery company. Dalí went against the Surrealists' ethics by painting portraits for money; advertisements were an even further digression, and by the Forties, Dalí's links with the Surrealist group were at an end.
    This drawing is in a mixture of mediums such as ink and collage; the central leg is a photograph placed upon the paper. In his commercial work, Dalí would include familiar images from his paintings of the time. In Composition of the Leg, there are many Dalínian images - the ant in the foreground or the crumbling clock tower with the cypress trees on top ó or the man and child in the distance. This drawing takes two images from Le Mendicant (1943) which was executed the year before: behind the clock tower are the same ruins and the figure on horseback to the left of the collaged leg also appears in Le Mendicant.

    Don Quixote was written by Miguel de Cervantes Saaredra. It is the classic tale of a Spanish man who read many adventure stories, changed his name to Don Quixote of La Mancha and took to the roads to seek adventures of his own. In his quest to become a knight renowned for his valor and courage, Don Quixote saw adventures and dangers where there are none. This drawing is from the 1946 edition of the book that Dalí illustrated. In the same year he also illustrated The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini.
    This drawing depicts the most famous of Don Quixote's adventures, Don Quixote and the Windmills. The character charges through the air at the top of the picture, his lance at the ready to attack the "giants". The giants are, as his squire Sancho tells him, just windmills, but Don Quixote insists that they are giants waving their arms at him. In the foreground, on the left, is a giant head with the back open for the viewer to see inside - a reference to Sancho's words that Don Quixote must have windmills inside his head to see giants where there are in fact only windmills.

    Benvenuto Cellini was an Italian goldsmith, metalworker and sculptor of the sixteenth century. Dalí illustrated a 1946 edition of his autobiography. The artist was interested in Italian Classical art and architecture, greatly inspired by visits to the country. He painted Rome in 1949.
    Benvenuto Cellini and Jupiter illustrates the story of Cellini, who while working for the King of France, unveils his new sculpture of Jupiter, (the supreme God in Roman mythology). Cellini had made his Jupiter entirely from silver, in one hand he held a thunderbolt, in the other the world. Dalí's Jupiter fills most of the picture; he seems to be moving, with one foot held out behind him as if he is about to trample on Cellini in the foreground.
    Once the figure of Jupiter was completed, Cellini positioned the piece in a dark hallway at the king's palace. He made a servant stand behind the sculpture with a white torch so that the silver would shine in the dark. Behind Jupiter were several more traditional bronze sculptures by Bologna, which can also be seen in Dalí's illustration. The king was delighted with the Jupitter, but others were critical of Cellini for his modernity in using silver.

    This portrayal of the Madonna is small at 10.5" x 10" (25.5 x 24.2 cm) and Dalí has only used half of it. The work is indistinct, a rough sketch, but by 1946 anything with his signature on it would sell. Under the strict supervision of Gala, who was highly motivated by greed, Dalí often rushed off a painting or a sketch to be sold quickly and profitably.
    The Madonna here is suggestive of a Renaissance Madonna, with her serene air, her closed eyes and the tilt of her head. Her vague half-smile is reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa. With these influences, the sketch does hint at the direction that Dalí was taking with his art; the subject is Classical and the style, in its imitation of the great Renaissance masters, is Classical also.
    The Madonna became a popular subject for Dalí in the early Fifties, during his "nuclear-mystical" period. The face in Madonna is similar to the one in Jour de la Vierge painted in 1947, but both of these can be seen as practise runs for Raphaelesque Head Exploding.

    Dalí's inspiration for this drawing seems to be the 1912 Franz Kafka tale Metamorphosis, where the hero is transformed into a huge bug. Metamorphose was executed around 1946; although not signed, it has a collector's stamp in the right corner.
    The picture combines two of Dalí's most favored subjects, transformation and insects. Some insects, such as the grasshopper, were symbols of fear for Dalí but on the whole he had a keen interest in them and so was able to reproduce them skillfully.
    The use of watercolor is restricted to areas that Dalí wanted to emphasize; the insect and the man's open skull. The insect bites into the head to reveal the inside is a watermelon. At a first glance, the object to the left of the man is a skull, on closer inspection the top of the skull is formed by a larvae attached to it. Dalí often painted skulls or transformed heads. In St. Georges Tuant le Dragon (c. 1942), a skull appears at the bottom of the painting to emphasize that death is occurring. In Metamorphose the skull could represent a death or an evolution.

    Lago di Garda features the largest lake in Italy, which is popular for tourism and water sports. The painting has an unusually peaceful air; the lake has few ripples on it and the reflection of the sailing boat can be clearly seen.
    This 1949 painting was executed in pen, ink, gouache, and watercolor on board. Dalí has used the ink as outline before using watercolor to complete the images. For the flowers in the foreground, he has allowed the colors to merge and spread, creating a haze of blue and yellow, then delineating their shapes by adding the leaves or the pen marks. Dalí's use of detail for the figure in red and the tower on the hill make a marked contrast with the blurry effect of the watercolor, as if the landscape is merely a dream that these two solid images have appeared in.
    The woman in the foreground wears a Dalínian costume; a parasol is attached to her head, her dress is held up by ties to her arms and of course, she holds a crutch. The dress shows similarities to the costume Dalí designed for The Woman of the Future (1953).