A Madrid judge had Salvador Dalí exhumed for a paternity test 28 years after his death, and the DNA said no

Dalí died of cardiac arrest at 84 and was buried in the crypt under the stage of his own Theatre-Museum in Figueres. His wife Gala had died in 1982. They had no children. Dalí left his estate to the Spanish state^†. Pilar Abel, born in Figueres in 1956, said her mother had an affair with Dalí while working in Cadaqués^†. A child recognised by a court could claim a share of the estate^†. On 26 June 2017 a Madrid judge's order to exhume the body was announced. On the evening of 20 July 2017 forensic teams opened the crypt and took nails, hair, bones and teeth. On 6 September 2017 the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation announced that Spain's National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences had excluded Dalí as her biological father. Abel challenged the result, saying the chain of custody of the remains was not accredited. On 18 May 2020 the Regional Court of Madrid dismissed her appeal and ordered her to pay the exhumation costs, estimated at about €7,000. The body went back into the crypt. A second problem remains in the estate: Dalí is alleged to have signed possibly over 50,000 blank lithograph sheets from 1965 until his death, and dealers treat his late prints as suspect.