What is the original Spanish title of the painting?

The original Spanish title of the painting is “La persistencia de la memoria.” Salvador Dalí painted this small Surrealist oil on canvas in 1931, and the title literally means “The Persistence of Memory.”

The work is famous for its limp, apparently melting pocket watches spread across a barren landscape. Its English title is a direct translation of the Spanish, while “The Melting Clocks,” “The Soft Watches,” and “The Melting Watches” are descriptive nicknames rather than the original title.

Dalí’s title does not formally explain the clocks. Interpretations often connect them with the instability of time, memory, and reality, although Dalí said the image was inspired by the sight of Camembert melting in the sun—not directly by Einstein’s theory of relativity.

The painting was first exhibited in New York at the Julien Levy Gallery in 1932. The Museum of Modern Art acquired it in 1934, and it remains one of the best-known works of Surrealism.