Salvador Dalí Painting Bought for £150 at House Clearance Sale Turns Out to Be an Original Worth Up to £30,000

29 July 2025

Salvador Dalí’s Vecchio Sultano is one of 100 illustrations finished in what was meant to be a 500-piece project. Photograph: Cheffins/Cambridge

An unassuming canvas that exchanged hands for just £150 at a house clearance sale in Cambridge in 2023 has been rung back into fame following authentication as an original Salvador Dalí, now valued at between £20,000 and £30,000. The mixed-media illustration titled Vecchio Sultano depicts an ornate sultan scene rendered in watercolor and felt-tip pen, a departure from the flamboyant surrealism for which Dalí is best known.

Experts attribute the piece to 1966, part of a broader Damascus-inspired Arabian Nights project that the artist abandoned after completing roughly a hundred of an intended five hundred works. Of those illustrated plates, many were lost or damaged, and only fifty remained with Dalí’s goddaughter Christina Albaretto. This newfound discovery comes via Cambridgeshire auctioneers Cheffins, with a scheduled sale date of October 23.

The journey toward authentication began when the dealer, a 60-year-old antiques buyer using the pseudonym John Russell, chanced upon the piece stashed in a garage, completely overlooked by others at the clearance auction. The painting saw no fierce bidding; just one opponent bowed out soon after his £150 offer, unwittingly giving him a prized treasure. Russell later discovered traces that indicated the painting had been listed in a 1990s Sotheby’s catalogue, prompting him to reach out to Cheffins for proper valuation.

Gabrielle Downie, a specialist at Cheffins, described the rediscovery as both rare and exhilarating. In her view, to unearth a lost and authenticated work by Dalí “is a real honour.” She credited the art world’s sense of loss at misattribution something typically reserved for older works for making this case exceptional. According to Downie, the artwork’s style, scale, and coloring align precisely with other pieces in Dalí’s Middle Eastern folktale portfolio. The painting measures 38 by 29 centimeters, a compact size typical of Dalí’s intended book illustrations.

The origin of the project gives deeper resonance. In 1963 Dalí received a commission from Italian patrons Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto, who initially sought biblical illustrations. Dalí persuaded them to instead explore The Arabian Nights, citing a personal fascination with Moorish imagery and identity. He completed about a hundred illustrations before abandoning the commission. Half were shelved in the publisher Rizzoli’s holdings and damaged or lost; the other fifty remained with the Albarettos and ultimately made their way into the Folio Society’s 2016 publication. This particular illustration is believed to belong to the retained batch later lost or scattered.

Nicolas Descharnes, a renowned Dalí expert, certified the piece as authentic. He emphasized that while it does not conform to Dalí’s archetypal surrealism, it authentically reflects his lesser-known illustrative period. Descharnes observed that the illustration matches Dalí’s technique and thematic intent in the Arabian Nights series. For him, this painting confirms that the artist’s genius extended beyond landscapes of melting clocks into refinement and subtle storytelling in mixed media.

For auction watchers and Dalí collectors, the upcoming sale offers a rare chance to add an authenticated “lost” work to a collection. The estimate of £20,000 to £30,000 places the painting within reach of serious buyers but hardly the sky-high valuations of his most iconic canvases. The discovery reminds the art world of how little-known pieces may resurrect the reputations of neglected corners of a celebrated oeuvre.

More broadly this story underscores the unpredictable nature of art discovery. A painting deemed ordinary, not listed with any reserve price and overlooked by most professionals, ends up bearing an artist’s signature and a legacy. It is a testament to the careful eyes and instincts of collectors like Russell, shaped by years of exposure to forensic art shows like Fake or Fortune, who may spot authenticity where others see only dust.

Cheffins’ October auction will take place in Cambridge, and while the painting’s market value is modest relative to Dalí’s most famous works, its provenance and narrative gives it outsized appeal. It offers both scholars and private buyers a story as compelling as the image itself the thrill of rediscovery, the academic confirmation, and the art historical puzzle it helps complete. Longtime Dalí collectors will note that the reappearance of one of the abandoned Arabian Nights plates enriches understanding of the artist's later experimental phase.

As auction previews begin in the coming weeks, attention will turn to whether the piece becomes catalyst for renewed interest in Dalí’s Moorish illustrations. For Russell, the dealer, the gamble on an undervalued canvas may become the highlight of a career built on intuition and attention to detail. For Dalí’s legacy, the painting restores a missing fragment from a commission he may have engineered himself and one that survived nearly forgotten in a Cambridge garage.

This remarkable turn of events offers a real-world fairy tale for the art world: a humble, unassuming piece purchased cheaply, authenticated, and elevated overnight into significance. Between the Moorish tale, the lost project, the clever detection of an antiques dealer and the pedigree of certification, it stands as a modern parable of cultural redemption and the enduring allure of original art.