Spain

[Drunk Monk]

Update: Analysts Dug Up Dalí's Body and Made a Major Discovery
It was called "a very emotional moment"

TEXT BY 
KATHERINE MCGRATH
Posted July 20, 2017
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Artist Salvador Dali, lifting his cane, with a woman in New York. Courtesy of Getty Images.

Bettmann

UPDATE: Last night's 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. While the results of the paternity test will not be ready for a couple weeks, the forensic analysts still made an astonishing discovery last 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 10 past 10, 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."
It's a case that's stranger than fiction: Celebrated surrealist Salvador Dalí's body is set to be exhumed from its crypt in Spain this evening. The reason? A 61-year-old fortune teller named Pilar Abel claims to be the Spanish artist's only child, and, after a DNA test using hair and skin particles from Dalí's death mask proved inconclusive a few years back, a judge has recently granted her permission to have his body exhumed to swab DNA from his bones and teeth.

Ms. Abel asserts that her mother had an affair with the artist near his home a year before her birth, and 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." Abel has been after a conclusive paternity test for a decade, bringing a case against the Spanish state, to whom Dalí bequeathed his fortune. Should the genetic test prove her lineage, Abel will be legally entitled to a quarter of his estate and to assume his legendary last name.
The foundation that manages the Dalí Theatre and Museum in Figueres, where the artist chose to rest eternally, is infuriated by the judge's order to exhume his body, but is complying—begrudgingly. "We oppose this decision," said Imma Parada, spokeswoman for the Dalí Museums and Foundation. "We appealed but haven’t received an answer yet."
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Pilar Abel, courtesy of Getty Images

LLUIS GENE

Dalí died in 1989, making 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. "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 have departed, museum staff will ceremoniously remove the 1.5-ton stone slab guarding the artist's eternal resting place to take genetic samples from his corpse. To protect his privacy, staff will erect 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 expect the process to take 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. "He'd be thrilled, I'm quite sure, by the whole business."