The results of the Salvador Dali DNA samples taken when the body of the Surrealist artist was exhumed last June has proven that Pilar Abel is not the biological daughter of the painter.
“The DNA tests show that Pilar Abel is not Dali’s daughter,” the foundation, which manages his estate, said
The Spanish woman María Pilar Abel Martínez, a tarot card reader who was born in 1956, claimed her mother had an affair with Dalí during the year before her birth. A judge in Madrid agreed his body could be exhumed for testing in June. But now the Dali Foundation says the tests carried out have conclusively proved the two are not related.
The foundation, which manages his estate, revealed the results in a statement on Wednesday, six weeks after the artist’s body was exhumed from a crypt in a museum dedicated to his life and work in Figueres, in north-eastern Spain. Had they been related, Ms. Martinez would have had a claim on part of Dali’s billion euro estate, which he left to the Spanish state following his death in 1989 at the age of 85.
The Court of First Instance nº 11 in Madrid has gave notice to the lawyers of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí (the law firm Roca Junyent) of the report issued by the National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences in which, after analysing the biological samples of Pilar Abel Martínez and those obtained in the exhumation of the remains of Salvador Dalí, it concludes that the results obtained “permits the exclusion of Salvador Dalí as the biological father of María Pilar Abel Martínez”.
The unusual and unjustified court decision to implement the exhumation is confirmed as totally inadequate and disproportionate, showing its utter inadmissibility and the uselessness of the costs and damages caused by all kind, in respect of which the Foundation reiterates its express right of actions.
The remains of Salvador Dalí will now be returned to his grave in the museum.