What medium was used for 'The Persistence of Memory'?

The medium used for *The Persistence of Memory* is oil on canvas.

Salvador Dalí painted the work in 1931, using the painstaking, highly controlled technique associated with his Surrealist style. Although the scene looks dreamlike—with sagging watches, a barren tree, and a strange sleeping form—the surfaces are rendered with remarkably precise detail.

The painting is unusually small, measuring about 24.1 by 33 centimeters (9½ by 13 inches). Its modest size contrasts with its enormous cultural impact: it became one of the most recognizable images of twentieth-century art and a defining work of Surrealism.

A common mix-up is to assume that the melting watches were made with an unusual material or that the painting is a mixed-media object. They are painted forms, and the Museum of Modern Art identifies the work’s medium simply as oil on canvas. Dalí’s soft-watch imagery was associated with melting Camembert, but the cheese was an inspiration for the subject, not the medium.