It's a case that's stranger than fiction: Celebrated surrealist Salvador Dalí's body was exhumed from its crypt in Spain this past July. The reason? A 61-year-old fortune teller named Pilar Abel claimed to be the surrealist artist's only child. She had very little evidence, save for a DNA test a few years back that used hair and skin particles from Dalí's death mask and proved inconclusive. Still, a judge granted Ms. Abel permission to have the artist's body exhumed to swab DNA from his bones and teeth.

After a long six weeks of bated breath, the DNA test proved that Ms. Abel is not, in fact, the daughter of Salvador Dalí. While Ms. Abel has yet to comment on the findings, the Salvador Dalí Foundation released a statement on Wednesday reasserting its original feelings about the case, writing on its website that "this conclusion comes as no surprise to the Foundation, since at no time has there been any evidence of the veracity of an alleged paternity."

Ms. Abel has been chasing after a conclusive paternity test for a decade, bringing a case against the Spanish state, to which Dalí bequeathed his fortune. Should the genetic test have proved her lineage, Ms. Abel would have been legally entitled to a quarter of that estate, and permitted to assume his legendary last name. Her grounds for the alleged lineage stem from her claim that her mother had had an affair with the artist near his home a year before her birth, and that her grandmother once told her, "I love you a lot, but I know that you're not the daughter of my son. What's more, I know who your father is—he is Salvador Dalí."

Pilar Abel, courtesy of Getty Images LLUIS GENE

Though there was speculation as to whether enough of a specimen existed to sample, the July 20 exhumation was indeed a success, and forensic analysts were able to collect remnants of Dalí's teeth, nails, hair, and two large bones for testing, confirmed Lluís Peñuelas, the secretary general of the Salvador Dalí Foundation. The results of the paternity test would not be ready for weeks, but the forensic analysts still made an astonishing discovery that night: Dalí's signature mustache was still intact. "His face was covered with a silk handkerchief. As I removed the handkerchief, I saw with great joy how his mustache remained intact, pointing to ten past ten, just as he wanted," exclaimed Narcis Bardalet, who embalmed Dalí's body 28 years ago, and was present for the exhumation. “Salvador Dalí is forever," he said. When speaking to the press, Peñuelas called news of the mustache "a very emotional moment."

The foundation that manages the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, where the artist chose to rest eternally, was infuriated by the judge's order to exhume his body, but complied—begrudgingly. "We oppose this decision," said Imma Parada, spokeswoman for the Dalí Museums and Foundation. "We appealed but haven’t received an answer yet." Upon learning the results of the paternity test, the Foundation wrote in a statement that "the unusual and unjustified court decision to practice the exhumation is confirmed as totally inadequate and disproportionate, showing its utter inadmissibility and the uselessness of the costs and damages caused of all kind, in respect of which the Foundation reiterates its express right of actions."

FIGUERAS, SPAIN: A sight of Salvador Dali's Museum during the fourth meeting of 'Principe de Girona's Foundation' on May 21, 2012, in Figueras, Spain. (Photo by Miquel Benitez/WireImage) Miquel Benitez

Dalí died in 1989, which made his remains a bit difficult to work with. "There is always the possibility that you might not get a lot of DNA," said Victoria Moore, the commercial DNA services manager for LGC, the United Kingdom's leading life sciences testing and forensics company, prior to the exhumation, "but I would expect them to get something—it's not yet 30 years old, so it's not too bad."

And so, at 8 P.M. local time, once the last of the day's visitors had departed, museum staff ceremoniously removed the 1.5-ton stone slab guarding the artist's eternal resting place and took genetic samples from his corpse. To protect his privacy, staff erected awnings to block the exhumation from view of prying drone eyes, as access to the tomb Dalí designed for himself is underneath a glass dome. Experts say the process took almost the entire length of the night.

"I think that Dalí would greatly enjoy being exhumed; it's a totally surrealist event," said Ian Gibson, author of The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí, at the time. "He'd be thrilled, I'm quite sure, by the whole business."