DNA analysis of the exhumed body of Salvador Dalí has shown that the Spanish woman who requested paternity determination is not his daughter, the Dalí Foundation announced on Wednesday.
The court overseeing the testing informed the foundation’s lawyers that Maria Pilar Abel is not Dalí’s biological daughter after her DNA was compared to DNA from the remains of the famous painter, according to a statement from the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation.
Abel said in a phone call that she has not yet received any notification from the court.
Maria Pilar Abel, born in 1956 in the northern Spanish town of Figueras, Dalí’s birthplace and where he is buried, claimed that her mother had an affair with the painter and had been trying for years to prove that she is his daughter.
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Her mother was reportedly a housekeeper in Dalí’s household in the 1950s when a secret love was born between them. The painter was then married to his artistic muse, Gala.
Abel sought exhumation based on legal evidence that one of the most prominent surrealists is her biological father, and if it were proven that he was her father, she could have claimed a quarter of his estate, which is currently managed by the foundation.
The remains of Dalí, who died in 1989 at the age of 84, are kept in the crypt of the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueras, which houses some of his works and paintings he collected.
