We prove that solutions of a mildly regularized Perona–Malik equation converge, in a slow time scale, to solutions of the total variation flow. The convergence result is global-in-time, and holds true in any space dimension. The proof is based on the general principle that "the limit of gradient-flows is the gradient-flow of the limit". To this end, we exploit a general result relating the Gamma-limit of a sequence of functionals to the limit of the corresponding maximal slope curves.