Salvador Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece The Persistence of Memory (1931) showcases one of the artist’s most iconic motifs: melting clocks. On permanent display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the hallucinatory painting features the limp clocks draped across branches, furniture, and even a sleeping human face. These melting clocks, sometimes referred to as soft or droopy watches, make repeated appearances throughout Dalí’s career, generating a variety of interpretations. Some scholars associate this symbol with the omnipresence of time and its mastery over humans. Others believe Dalí’s melting clocks are a symbol for Albert Einstein’s groundbreaking Theory of Relativity, while some art historians attribute Dalí’s inspiration to a much simpler moment: when the artist watched cheese melt in the sun.

Mystery of Sleep (The Hermit)
Salvador Dali, Spanish (1904–1989)
Portfolio: Visions Surrealiste
Date: 1976
Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition of 100/150
Size: 29 x 21 in. (73.66 x 53.34 cm)
Printer: Torrents, Spain ; Gordon, France
Publisher: Levine and Levine
Reference: "The Official Catalog of the Graphic works of Salvador Dali" by Albert Field, 1996 as Figure 76-4 C on page 130