Salvador Dali's body is being exhumed to establish paternity. For the sake of inheritance: a video of the exhumation of the legendary Dali has appeared

During his lifetime, Salvador Dali was a real king of outrageousness and repeatedly found himself at the center of scandals. 28 years have passed since his death, but the name of the great surrealist is again on the front pages of the world media. Another high-profile story involves Pilar Abel, a tarot card fortune teller who claimed that she was the daughter of famous artist. The woman achieved the exhumation of the artist’s body and finally waited for the results of the examination.

The father of surrealism is Salvador Dali.

By decision of a Spanish court, on July 20, 2017, the body of the famous surrealist was exhumed. Experts conducted an expensive DNA test, which made it possible to determine whether Abel is illegitimate daughter Dali. Now Abel is 61 years old, according to her, since childhood she heard from her mother and grandmother that her father was famous artist. Relatives even called her “Dali without a mustache,” emphasizing her external resemblance.

Pilar Abel received judicial permission to exhume the body of Salvador Dalí.

Pilar is from Catalonia, and for ten years she has been trying to prove her relationship with Salvador Dali. The woman has something to fight for: the artist had no heirs, he bequeathed his entire fortune to Spain, which is about 300 million euros, of which a quarter, by law, must be transferred to Pilar (if the DNA test is positive).

Salvador Dali and his Russian wife Gala.

Pilar's position is supported by the world famous illusionist Uri Geller. According to him, in one of the private conversations Dali admitted to him that he was the father of two illegitimate children from different women.

Pilar's statements are questionable, primarily because Salvador Dali is known as a voyeur; some of his friends even believed that he was cold towards women and doubted that he had sexual relations with them. Dali himself repeatedly admitted that he was afraid female body and only once experienced intimacy with his Russian wife Gala.

Creative process.

That is why Pilar's statements shocked the public. The woman claims that her mother Antonia worked as a maid in Cadaques for Dali's neighbors in the 1950s. Afterwards, she went to work in Salvador’s house, and a whirlwind romance allegedly broke out between them.

There were no children in the marriage of Dali and Gala, but whether the artist could have become a father “on the side” is an open question. Uri Geller claims that in the painting " Last Supper» Salvador Dali depicted his two children. “He painted his children with their heads down, so they are unrecognizable,” the illusionist emphasized.

Salvador Dali and a nude model.

Hearing accusations of wanting to enrich himself at the expense of a great artist, Pilar says that she started litigation not because of money, but simply out of a desire to find out who she really is.

In 2007, she already conducted a DNA test using skin and hair taken from death mask They did, but the results were controversial. Due to a lack of biological material to conduct a more thorough study, Spanish judges agreed to exhume the body.

According to materials from the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, experts published the results of DNA tests. Pilar Abel and Salvador Dali are not related by blood.

Soon there will be an end to the high-profile story that has been exciting Spain for several years - whether the great surrealist Salvodor Dali has an heir, or rather an heiress. In Figueres, in the house-museum of the eccentric artist, his remains were exhumed in order to take DNA samples, the court ruled.

For many years it was believed that Dali had no descendants, but now a woman was found who claimed that she was his illegitimate daughter. While waiting for the results, the local press calculated what kind of inheritance this lady could count on if everything was confirmed.

The forensic procedure takes place in an absolutely surreal spirit. The remains of Salvador Dali are exhumed in front of a huge press gathering. But not a single shot will be taken inside the museum. Forbidden. Even the glass dome was covered with fabric to prevent the body from being removed by drones. Journalists and tourists chatter: “I wonder how his famous mustache is?” Completely surreal.

“Let's not discuss such details. As the mayor of the city, I was present at the procedure. I can only say that the remains of Salvador Dali in satisfactory condition", said the mayor of Figueres, Marta Felip.

The great artist seemed to have foreseen: the eternal sleep caused by the flight of a bumblebee around a pomegranate would, sooner or later, be disturbed. He bequeathed not to bury his body. Dali was buried in the building of his personal theater-museum under a multi-ton steel slab. Tonight she was moved for Pilar Abel Martinez.

“I have a chance to learn the main thing about myself, to essentially understand who I am. It is wonderful! This is the best thing that could have happened to me and my mother. There are no words!" - she says.

Pilar Abel Martinez insists: she is the illegitimate daughter of Salvador Dali. The mother worked as a maid in the house where the artist lived, and everything started to happen: courts, three DNA examinations, based on particles taken from the artist’s death mask. Fiasco... Some external similarity, of course, can be found. But Dali never mentioned possible daughter. Pilar Abel Martinez herself is better known as a soothsayer. Love spell, lapel, vow of celibacy. Either she's a swindler, or she's just like her father - extravagant.

“I want everyone to know I feel calm and positive. Yes, I have peace in my soul. For eleven years I searched for the truth,” says Pilar Abel Martinez.

The man who embalmed Salvador Dali's body was present at the exhumation today. He fears the formaldehyde he used 28 years ago may have damaged his DNA.

“Apparently, experts will work with material from the artist’s large bones and teeth. All this will be taken for research in Madrid, to the Institute of Toxicology,” explains Narcisse Bardalet.

The result of the DNA test will be announced at the court hearing on September 18. If it is confirmed that Salvador Dali was indeed the father of Pilar Abel Martinez, the woman will be able to claim a quarter of the artist’s inheritance - 300 million euros.

On July 20, the remains of Salvador Dali, one of the most famous representatives surrealism: a 61-year-old Spanish fortune teller, who believes that she is the illegitimate daughter of the artist, has obtained an examination to establish paternity.

DNA samples were needed for the examination. The first examination was carried out back in 2007, using the skin and hair of Dali's death mask. However, the test results were inconclusive. A repeat test was made on the basis of material taken from the nasal feeding tubes that were administered to Dali in the hospital after the fire at Pubol Castle, but this too did not give satisfactory results.

In 2015, Pilar Abel asked a Madrid court to allow her to exhume the remains of Salvador Dalí to confirm his paternity. On June 27, 2017, the court decided to exhume the body of Salvador Dali.

The court said this was necessary because there was no other material available to make the comparison.

It is planned to extract DNA samples from the artist’s tissues and compare them with samples of the alleged daughter. This is a rather difficult task, but quite realistic: the oldest human remains from which DNA could be extracted were about 2 thousand years old, and Dali’s body lay in the coffin for only 28 years. The best “candidates” for searching for DNA are teeth and bones, from soft tissues that quickly deteriorate after death and would be difficult to extract.

"Humidity and environment, as a rule, have a destructive effect,” explains Rina Moore, professor of forensic medicine. - As well as embalming methods. Any chemicals used in this process may adversely affect the integrity of the DNA.”

Teeth are ideal for analysis due to their enamel, which protects the cells inside from exposure. external factors. In addition, several of Dali's teeth do not sit too firmly in the gum, so it would be possible to remove them without damaging the jaw.

When the remains were recovered, all those present noted that Dali’s famous mustache was perfectly preserved and kept its shape. Narcis Bardale, who embalmed Dalí's body in 1989, called it a miracle.

However, for scientists who regularly deal with corpses, there is nothing miraculous in such preservation of vegetation. “Human remains placed in an airtight storage facility, such as a coffin or crypt, can retain hair for very long periods of time,” says anthropologist Tiffany Saul. - And even after exposure external environment they often persist for many years after death.”

“It was quite likely that Dali’s mustache would remain intact,” confirms forensic scientist George Schiro. — Hair consists mainly of keratin protein, which is quite strong. It can even withstand digestive enzymes.”

@cnnturk/Twitter.com

However, hair can still decompose. The main culprit for this is fungus. “If conditions are not optimal for fungal growth, such as being too hot or too cold, the hair will persist for a long time,” explains Saul. The rate of decomposition will depend on what the body is exposed to, says professor of forensic medicine Rina Roy, emphasizing that there is no exact answer. Evidence of this is, for example, a remarkably preserved beard, the remains of which were recently discovered in eastern Turkey, and even the famous mummy of Ötzi, despite his venerable age, more than 5 thousand years, preserved several strands of hair.

But what neither hair nor nails, contrary to popular belief, can do is grow.

After death human body loses moisture, causing part of the hair or nail that was previously hidden under the skin to become visible. Glucose is necessary for the growth of hair and nails, but after death it is not produced and the body is not able to produce new cells. And the hormonal mechanisms that influence growth no longer fulfill their function.

Maria Pilar Abel Martinez has been trying for ten years to prove that she is the artist's biological daughter. This summer the story reached its climax. The court ordered the exhumation of the remains and a DNA test. The results were negative.

Who is Pilar Abel

According to the newspaper El Pais, Maria Pilar Abel Martinez is a 61-year-old clairvoyant from Girona, Spain. For more than eight years she acted as a fortune teller in a program on local television. The town of Girona is just an hour's drive from Figueres, where Salvador Dali was born and raised.

According to Abel Martinez, she first heard that Dali was her father from her grandmother. One day she told her: “I know that you are not the daughter of my son and that you are the daughter of a great artist, but I love you just as much.” In addition, Abel claimed that when her grandmother scolded her, she often said: “You are strange, just like your father.”

In the 50s, according to Abel, her mother worked as a maid in Port Lligat. Nearby, the Dali family had a house, which later became the artist’s museum. Abel claims that Antonia worked for Dali’s friends, whom the artist often visited.

Pilar Abel was born on February 1, 1956. Even before this, the mother left the village and married another man. However, according to Abel, she was born precisely after the secret relationship between the artist and her mother Antonia in 1955.

At that time, Salvador Dali had already been living in a civil marriage with his wife for two decades. future wife Gala (nee Elena Dyakonova). Their official wedding took place only in 1958. The couple had no children.

Exchange of claims

Salvador Dalí died in Figueres in 1989 at the age of 84. The artist bequeathed to bury himself so that people could walk on his grave. That is why Dali’s remains were walled up under the floor of his theater-museum in Figueres.

However, the artist left no biological samples on which to conduct analysis. In 2007, Pilar already tried to conduct a DNA study to establish paternity. Then the material for the examination was the remains of skin and hair that were preserved in Dali’s plaster death mask.

This mask was provided by Salvador Dali's friend and biographer Robert Descharnes. But, as Abel states, she never received these tests, because their transfer was blocked by the Dali Foundation, which controls and manages the master’s entire inheritance.

However, back in 2008, in an interview with the Spanish agency EFE, Desharnes' son Nicolas said that the doctor who conducted the paternity test told him that the test result was negative.

In 2015, Abel filed a lawsuit against the Spanish Ministry of Finance and the Gala and Salvador Dali Foundation. On June 26, 2017, a Madrid court ordered the exhumation of the artist's body.

And again a fiasco

If the test results were positive, Pilar Abel could claim to bear the surname of the great painter. Also, a woman could claim a quarter of Dali’s inheritance and copyrights to his works.

During his life, the artist, who is considered one of the most famous representatives of surrealism, created over a hundred works. The most expensive on this moment his painting is a portrait of Paul Eluard. This work was sold at Sotheby's for $22 million in 2011.

On July 20, Dali's remains were exhumed. For analysis, samples of hair, nails, teeth were taken, and two long bones were also extracted. However, a DNA test showed that Pilar Abel is not the painter’s daughter. The woman herself intends to challenge this decision. She noted that she “doesn’t trust the storage network” for DNA samples.

At the same time, at a meeting on September 18, the Madrid court confirmed the results of the genetic examination. And the Spanish prosecutor's office petitioned to recover legal costs from Pilar Abel. The prosecution stated that the woman’s behavior was “capricious and unreasonable,” as well as the doubts she expressed to the Institute of Toxicology about the error of the DNA test results.

The prosecutor's office will consider the request next week. The verdict will be announced then.

Timur Fekhretdinov

Salvador Dali During his lifetime he was a real king of outrageousness and repeatedly found himself at the center of scandals. 28 years have passed since his death, but the name of the great surrealist is again on the front pages of the world media. Another high-profile story involves Pilar Abel, a tarot card fortune teller who claimed that she was the daughter of a famous artist. The woman achieved the exhumation of the artist’s body and finally waited for the results of the examination.

By decision of a Spanish court, on July 20, 2017, the body of the famous surrealist was exhumed. Experts conducted an expensive DNA test, which made it possible to determine whether Abel is Dali’s illegitimate daughter. Now Abel is 61 years old, according to her, since childhood she heard from her mother and grandmother that her father was a famous artist. Relatives even called her “Dali without a mustache,” emphasizing her external resemblance.

Pilar's statements are questionable, primarily because Salvador Dali is known as a voyeur; some of his friends even believed that he was cold towards women and doubted that he had sexual relations with them. Dali himself repeatedly admitted that he was afraid of the female body and only once experienced intimacy with his Russian wife Gala.

There were no children in the marriage of Dali and Gala, but whether the artist could have become a father “on the side” is an open question. Uri Geller claims that Salvador Dali depicted his two children in the painting “The Last Supper”. “He painted his children with their heads down, so they are unrecognizable,” the illusionist emphasized.

Hearing accusations of wanting to enrich herself at the expense of the great artist, Pilar says that she started the legal battle not because of money, but simply out of a desire to find out who she really is.

In 2007, she previously conducted a DNA test using skin and hair taken from Dali's death mask, but the results were controversial. Due to a lack of biological material to conduct a more thorough study, Spanish judges agreed to exhume the body.

According to materials from the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia, experts published the results of DNA tests. Pilar Abel and Salvador Dali are not related by blood.

It is not yet known for certain whether Salvador Dali had mistresses, but his wife Gala had many affairs. From our review you can find out who Gala sympathized with and even who lived with married couple in the status of a lover.

Based on materials from thesun.co.uk