Forensic experts remove hair, nails and bone from the artist’s remains for paternity test

Forensic experts in Spain have removed hair, nails and two long bones from Salvador Dali’s embalmed remains to find genetic samples for a paternity test a move that opens the possibility for a woman who says she is the surrealist artist’s daughter to claim part of the Dali estate.

Officials said on Friday that the artist’s mummified remains were so well conserved that even his famous moustache had survived the passing of time and remained in “its classic shape of ten past ten”, referring to the positions of the hands on a clock.

Dali was buried in the Dali Museum Theatre in the northeastern Spanish town of Figueres, his birthplace, when he died at 84 years old in 1989. The exhumation followed long-standing claims by Pilar Abel, a 61-year-old tarot card reader, who says her mother had an affair with Dali in the town.

In June, a Madrid judge finally ruled that a DNA test should be performed to find out whether her allegations were true.

Forensic experts opened the artist’s coffin on Thursday night in a sensitive operation that involved using pulleys to lift a 1.5-ton stone slab.

Lluis Penuelas Reixach, the secretary general of the Gala Dali Foundation, said Dali’s remains including his moustache are well conserved, mummified after the embalming process applied 27 years ago.

Pilar Abel claims to be the daughter of eccentric artist Salvador Dali. A 61-year old tarot card reader, Abel claims that her mother had an affair with Salvador Dali while working as a domestic helper in the northeastern Spanish town of Figueres, where the artist was born and lived with his Russian wife Gala. | Photo Credit: AP

According to judicial authorities, only five people judge, three coroners and an assistant were allowed to oversee the removal of the samples out of respect for the remains and in order to avoid any contamination.

Representatives of the foundation managing Dali’s estate said on Friday that the evidence backing Abel’s claims weren’t enough to justify the intrusive exhumation, and that it will continue a legal battle to nullify the paternity test.

Claim to estate

Dali and his Russian wife Gala, whose birth name was Elena Ivanovna Diakonova, had no children of their own, although Gala had a daughter from an earlier marriage to French poet Paul Eluard. .

Abel was born in Girona, a city close to Figueres. She has fought for the exhumation because she wants legal proof that the artist was her biological father after an alleged affair between her mother and Dali.

If proved right, she could claim one fourth of the painter’s estate, which is now in the hands of a public foundation, according to her lawyer Enrique Blanquez. There are no current estimates of the value of that fortune.

If she is proved wrong, the Dali foundation will seek financial compensation for the costs of the exhumation.