A Psychic Has Been Ordered to Pay the Costs of Exhuming Salvador Dalí’s Corpse for a Failed Paternity Test

A Spanish court has dismissed an
appeal from a psychic who claimed to be Salvador Dalí’s long-lost
daughter after DNA results debunked the outlandish theory. Pilar
Abel has been ordered to pay for exhuming the surrealist artist’s
body three years ago in her quest to prove he was her
father.

After the Madrid court ruled
that Dalí was not related to her, Abel filed an appeal calling
into question how his remains were handled. On Monday May 18,
the Regional Court of Madrid dismissed this appeal, and ruled that
Abel was liable for the costs for the exhumation. While
no amount was cited, the bill had been previously been estimated to be around
€7,000 ($7,678).

A statement from
the Fundació Gala-Salvador
Dalí expresses its “satisfaction” with the ruling, which it deems
to have “honored” the artist’s memory. “The Dalí Foundation puts an
end to this sad episode,” the statement says.

Abel, a tarot card reader and
astrologist from the Spanish city of Girona, first filed a
paternity suit in 2015. She sued the Spanish state as well as the
artist’s foundation, which had inherited his estate when he died in
1989. 

Abel’s mother had worked in
Cadaqués, where the Dalí family also had a residence, and allegedly
told her daughter that she was the product of an affair with the
artist in 1955.

In a bizarre turn of events in
2017, Abel won the right
to exhume the artist for hair, nail, and bone samples
to be taken for a DNA test. After
the results disproved her allegation, she filed the appeal claiming
that the “chain of custody” in handling the remains had been
interrupted. The court found that Abel gave no basis for this
allegation, and said that she only “intended to rouse suspicion”
about the “objectivity and capacity” of those working in the public
institute that carried out the test.

Abel is entitled to appeal the
court’s decision within 20 days, but for now the surrealist artist
and his perfectly-preserved moustache can rest in peace. He is
buried in a crypt he designed for himself in his hometown of
Figueres in the region of Catalonia.

The post A Psychic Has Been Ordered to Pay the Costs of Exhuming
Salvador Dalí’s Corpse for a Failed Paternity Test appeared
first on artnet News.