The personification of the month of May stands with her head facing the sun. A dark rain cloud partly covers the sun, so that rain as well as rays of light pour down. Next to May, hovering near her arm, is Cupid, Dalí here reminding the viewer of the cliche of love in the springtime. The drawing is mainly executed in pen, with touches of watercolor to add a warm skin tone to May and to darken the cloud above her.
    Shoots of plants are emerging from May's hair and feet, representing the fecundity of the month. Also suggesting fecundity, are the mushrooms that she carries in a basket and that grow from her groin and along her hips. The mushroom's likeness for dank and moldy areas gives this particular image an unpleasant overtone, and is possibly Dalí referring to his dislike of sexual contact. Snails form the woman's breasts, the swirl of their cones insinuating her nipples.
    Although executed much earlier, May shares the same tall, slim figure, high breasts, and tiny waist with the women in the later work, Le Voyageur (1967). This shapely figure can be seen in most of Dalí's women, Dalí's men also share this same lithe, almost athletic shape, like dancers.

    Naples is one of a series of watercolor and ink paintings that Dalí made of Italian scenery during 1949. He had returned to Europe in 1948 after living in the USA for nearly ten years. The color in the painting has been restricted to the areas of emphasis, such as the figure in the foreground and the volcano. To increase this emphasis, these two images are aligned.
    In the foreground, playing a mandolin, is a medieval court jester; Dalí was accused of behaving like a jester with his constant publicity stunts and the hat is similar to one that he took to wearing in later years. This medieval figure acts as a sign to the viewer that Dalí's depiction of Naples is of the city many centuries ago. There are only a few sketchy houses along the seashore, sailing boats move toward the shore and in the background a volcano is erupting.
    The tiny figures behind the jester, the fisherman with his net, the figure sitting with legs stretched out in front of it, and the small boat, all appear in the background of another lakeside scene in Roman Cavalier in Spain (1954).

    Rome is from the same series as Naples, and is part of a commission for Mr. and Mrs. Lasker of New York. As with the other painting, Dalí has restricted his use of color in order to create emphasis where it is applied. In Rome, Dalí has used the strong color of the trees to create a frame for the stone angels that appear in the center of the foreground. The different greens used for the color of the trees have been allowed to bleed into each other, a technique that Dalí also used for another work in this series, Lago di Garda (1949).
    The angels in the foreground remind us of the religious aspect of the city, the papal home. Characteristically for Dalí, they have no facial features. In the distance, sitting under a tree is the same medieval jester that appears in the foreground of the painting of Naples (1949) although he has swapped his mandolin for a trumpet, the instrument of the angels. The religious aspect of Rome is further alluded to by the celestial light that shines over the city.

    Throughout his life, Dalí had a keen interest in design, especially of clothes but also of objects, stage sets, jewelry and inventions. In the early Thirties, during a period of extreme hardship, he made designs that Gala tried, unsuccessfully, to sell. Some of these were for inventions such as fingernails with mirrors on them but he also designed clothes, such as a dress with padding to attain the "ideal" female shape.
    Dalí made the design for the costume for The Woman of the Future in 1953. The by-now infamous Dalínian images of the crutch and the extended body parts (seen in Hairdresser Depressed by the Persistent Good Weather (1934)) are both used in the design, although their appearance in his paintings had greatly declined. The crutch, this time held by a servant of the statuesque woman, props up the woman's hugely extended hair. Dalí once designed a jeweled nose crutch, which he described as "an absolutely useless kind of object to appeal to the snobbism of certain criminally elegant women". The use of the crutch in this design seems to have the same inference. The woman holds up a huge butterfly into which she is vainly seeking her own reflection.

    Le Papillon au Rocher - the butterfly at the stone - was painted in 1954, using a variety of mediums: watercolor, collage and black ink on paper. Dalí often employed several techniques in one work to create contrast, texture and emphasis. With a very small picture such as Le Papillon au Rocher, which measures only 14" x 23" (35 x 27 cm), the collage gives a startling effect.
    At the top of the picture poised over the rock is the butterfly. The shadow on the rock gives the impression that it is about to land. The butterfly is a real one, possibly from Dalí's own collection of mounted butterflies. Dalí has used very little color in the picture, the background is left empty of color and, with the exception of a figure holding a crutch, of form. This lack of color ensures that the emphasis on the butterfly is amplified.
    Dalí was fascinated with insects, especially those that transformed themselves from one form to another, an interest that he made use of in Metamorphose. The picture is a simple one and with the dedication at the bottom "Pour Madame Lambert Hommage", it is probably unfinished.

    Vase de Fleurs was painted using the mediums of watercolor, pen and black ink on board, in 1956. Dalí signed the painting in the small rock on the left, making the letters appear as if chiselled out of the stone. The watercolor flowers are similar to those of the Lago di Garda (1949), in which the flowers of the foreground seem blurred as if they have been left to bleed into each other. The colors seem to merge and run across the paper. The flowers in Vase de Fleurs are not realistic, they appear to have been dropped on to the paper.
    The flowing structure of the flowers contrasts with the intricate decorations on the vase, especially with the woman's face on the right. Dalí had used the image of a woman's face combined with a series of paintings in 1929, which included The Great Masturbator. Lilies were also painted to echo a sexual scene that is shown above them. The lily can be seen as symbolically sexual in Vase de Fleurs, with open, dark red petals combined with the image of the woman as a receptacle.

    This magnificent little gouache and watercolor drawing is part of a series on which Dali worked at the same time that he was painting the large canvas The Ecumenical Council, which is now in The Salvador Dali Museum in Florida. In order to make the figures stand out, Dali has used the color with great care, but it is especially because of the drawing here, thrown rather pell-mell across a sort of calligraphy of unknown inspiration, that the figures of Saint Anne and Saint John come to life. The treatment of the ram at the feet of Saint Anne is admirable. Three other exceptional works of this series of watercolors should be mentioned: Saint Anne and the Infant from the Mr. and Mrs. A. Reynolds Morse Collection, Saint Salvador and Antonio Gaudi Arguing About the Crown of the Virgin, and a marvelous portrait of Saint John in the collection of Gala Dali.
    Speaking of the works of this period, the painter has remarked: "Tachisme, already discovered by Protagoras during the golden age of Greece when he threw a sponge against a wall, was only hierarchized by Mariano Fortuny. The more subtle the image the more efficacious the spot."