(Architectural Digest) 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.
