Salvador Dali remains were well-preserved officials stated after the exemption of his body on Thursday night. His hair and mustache were also in perfect shape with facial hair in the trademark “ten past ten” position. His corpse was exhumed to settle a paternity claim with a 61-year-old psychic in Catalonia.
His mustache appeared at 10 past 10 and his hair was intact.
A stone slab weighing more than a tonne at the Dali Theatre-Museum in Figueras in northeastern Spain was removed in order to open the coffin containing the remains. DNA samples were removed from Dali’s hair, nail, and two long bones. The Dali Foundation contested, that before carrying out an “invasive” exhumation of Dali’s remains, Abel’s DNA should have been compared to her brother’s. If they both match, it would mean they shared a common father, who was not Dali. “The court ruling that ordered the exhumation lacked any basis,” the statement said, but there was no time to present the case.
“I was very anxious about what I would see,” said Narcis Bardalet, the forensic expert who embalmed Dali back in 1989 and who was at his grave the moment he was exhumed on Thursday night for a DNA test. “I was absolutely stunned. It was like a miracle…his mustache appeared at 10 past 10 and his hair was intact,” Bardalet added during an interview with the public television station TVE1, referring to the positions of the hands on a clock.
Last month a Madrid court ruled Pilar Abel could perform a DNA test to determine whether she is Dali’s daughter. She claims her mother had an affair with the Surrealist when she worked in Cadaques, a small Spanish port where the painter spent his Summers. If the tests prove positive her lawyer Enrique Blanquez has revealed Abel would be entitled to 25 percent of the estimated 400 million euro estate. However, Abel may be liable for the costs of the exhumation if her claims are inaccurate. Results are expected within a few weeks.
The foundation was up in arms at the court’s decision to order the exhumation, saying in a statement that it was based only on Abel’s claim that her mother once had a relationship with Dali.