Salvador Dalí’s famous twirling moustache is in a good condition, says the embalmer who tended the Surrealist’s body after his death in 1989. The artist’s most recognisable facial feature remains unblemished, says Narcís Bardalet who assisted with the exhumation of Dalí’s corpse yesterday at the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres (20 July). “His moustache is still intact [set at] ten past ten, just as he liked it, it’s a miracle,” Bardalet told the Catalan radio station RAC1. Last month, a Spanish court ordered that Dalí’s body be exhumed to determine whether he is the biological father of María Pilar Abel Martínez. According to the Spanish newspaper El País, Abel has been fighting to be acknowledged as Dalí’s daughter since 2007. Abel claims that her mother had an affair with the artist in 1955 in Port-Lligat, a small coastal village in northern Catalonia where Dalí lived and worked. Abel was born the following year in February 1956 (Dalí was married to Gala at the time; the couple never had any children). If Abel is the daughter of Dalí, she could make a claim towards the artist’s estate, which was left to the Spanish state following his death in 1989. The DNA results are expected in the next two months.
