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The Encyclopedia of Horology

Table clock · Bienne

Table clock “The Premonition of Drawers”

Verified

A sculpture in light-green patinated bronze, this Salvador Dali clock was based on the artist's 1934 drawing, The Premonition of Drawers. Sculpted by Onelio Vignando, the bronze was cast by Valsuani in Paris. There were eight copies made besides the four artist’s proofs done by the André-François Petit Gallery in Paris.

Technical facts

Inventory number
MIH IV-691
Object type
Table clock
Place of production
Bienne
Dating
1973
Materials and techniques (catalogue wording)
Bronze, émail
Dimensions (catalogue)
Dimensions: 21.0 x 40.0 x 28.0 cm; poids: 9.100 kg
Inscriptions (catalogue)
Dali EA (Socle)

Historical significance

  • A sculpture in light-green patinated bronze, this Salvador Dali clock was based on the artist's 1934 drawing, The Premonition of Drawers. Sculpted by Onelio Vignando, the bronze was cast by Valsuani in Paris. There were eight copies made besides the four artist’s proofs done by the André-François Petit Gallery in Paris.
  • A special watch model with an electronic tuning fork movement was made by Omega to be fitted in the sculpture. The bean on top can be unscrewed to remove the watch.
  • In the 1930’s, Dali worked on a series of allegories of time that included clocks and watches. The best-known are The Persistence of Memory (1931), Triangular Time (1933), and Time of the Crackled Face (1934), in which the face of a woman’s bust is a deformed clock. The same symbolic element appears in his drawing, The Premonition of Drawers: a woman, in the pose of an odalisque with her body divided up into rectangular drawers, has the face of a clock dial surrounded by long, lank hair. The clock, therefore, is a three-dimensional rendering of an image dear to the artist, the association of a watch with a woman with drawers, a recurring figure in his work.
  • Omega, in collaboration with Max Hetzel, developed a tuning-fork movement operating at 720 Hz. This movement, the Omega 1220 Megasonic, was commercialized in 1972.

Photographs

Table clock “The Premonition of Drawers” (MIH IV-691)
Table clock “The Premonition of Drawers” (MIH IV-691) — Musée international d'horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Museum collection photograph, rights review pending. MIH collection record
Table clock “The Premonition of Drawers” (MIH IV-691)
Table clock “The Premonition of Drawers” (MIH IV-691) — Musée international d'horlogerie, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Museum collection photograph, rights review pending. MIH collection record

Photographs are illustrative examples of the type, not necessarily the exact object described. Verify details against the source file page.

Sources & references

  1. Musée international d'horlogerie, online collection record, inv. IV-691: https://collection.mih.ch/fr/collection/item/38517/

Where sources disagree, the disagreement is stated rather than resolved silently.