Fashioned in diamonds, blue enamel and platinum with a single cabochon ruby in the left corner, it includes a 17-jewel Movado watch movement.
Dalí started to design jewellery in partnership with the Argentinian-born goldsmith Carlos Alemany of New York in 1940 and continued into the late 1950s. The Eye of Time brooch was first designed for Dalí's wife Gala in 1949 - the original brooch is now on permanent exhibition at the Fundacio Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres where the original drawing also resides.
It is not known how many were produced. Speaking of this piece the artist said: "Man cannot change or escape his time. The eye sees the present and the future."
Carlos Alemany produced limited editions of the original jewels for general sale. This example was consigned via the Dreweatt-Bloomsbury Rome office by a vendor whose family member had purchased it in the 1950s from Alemany & Ertman, New York. It came with the original Alemany & Ertman velvet box.
The successful purchaser at Dreweatts sale in Maddox Street on July 17, who went a considerable way over the estimate of £8000-12,000, was a private American buyer.
The buyer's premium was 24/12%.
