In a surreal development almost worthy of one of his paintings, Salvador Dalí’s grave is scheduled to be opened tomorrow (July 20) in an effort to collect DNA samples that could settle a paternity claim against the artist’s estate.
The paternity suit has been brought by Pilar Abel, a tarot card reader and fortune teller who has claimed for many years to be the illegitimate daughter of Dalí, who died in 1989. Abel, who is well-known in Spain as a television psychic, claims that her grandmother said Abel’s mother had an affair with the artist before the fortune teller’s birth.
The French news agency AFP reported that a judge in a court in Madrid ordered Dalí’s remains to be exhumed after previous tests failed to provide a viable sample of the artist’s DNA. These tests were done on fragments of the artist’s skin and hair that were taken from his death mask.