Life Imitates Art: A Mesmerizing Piaget Watch Mirrors an Iconic Salvador Dalí Work

High watchmaking and haute jewelry have been inextricably linked at Piaget since 1957, and that sentiment continues to ring true in pieces like this 18K-rose-gold Essentia watch, which features a mesmerizing opal dial set with diamonds.

There is arguably no Surrealist painting more famous than Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931), portraying a grouping of pocket watches—limp and soft like melting Camembert in the sun, according to the artist—in a barren and infinite dreamscape; the work has been in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York for more than 90 years.

A version of this article first appeared in print in our 2025 Summer Issue in the section “Life Imitates Art.” Subscribe to the magazine.