Salvador Dalí painting found in junk shop unveiled

Art experts in Spain have unveiled a previously unseen painting by the surrealist Salvador Dalí­ which was discovered by chance in a junk shop and which they believe sheds new light on his work.

The Intra-Uterine Birth of Salvador Dalí, painted when the artist was still a teenager and depicting his birth as a creative genius, was officially presented yesterday in Madrid, a quarter of a century after it was unearthed.

In 1988, the artist Tomeu l’Amo was browsing in a shop in Girona, on the Catalan coast, when he came across the oil painting.

“I thought to myself, ‘I recognise these colours,” L’Amo recalled yesterday at the presentation. “I asked the shop owner to keep the picture for me and I ran off to Girona library and while I was running I was trying to think who those colours reminded me of. When I arrived, I asked for the library’s biggest book on Salvador Dalí­ and when I opened it, I realised that these were the same colours that were in the picture. I ran back and bought it.”

Virtually priceless

The picture, believed to have been painted in 1921, when Dalí­ was 17, cost L’Amo only 25,000 pesetas, about €140. He would not reveal its estimated value today, but he and the experts who helped him research and restore it believe it is virtually priceless.

Dalí­ was a major figure of the surrealist movement, and he became renowned for sexually charged and dream-influenced paintings such as The Persistence of Memory, with its drooping timepieces. Also known for his eccentric behaviour, he died in 1989.

The Intra-Uterine Birth of Salvador Dalí­ depicts a group of seven angels above a mountainous landscape. Six of them are gathered around an angel who is playing a harp while standing on an egg.

L’Amo and his fellow researchers believe this angel represents Dalí­ himself, undergoing the transformation from ordinary mortal to immortal genius within his mother’s womb.

L'Amo said the years of research into the painting's complex psychological and artistic influences can help decode many of the mysteries of Dalí­'s more celebrated works. "By applying the 'Dalí­ code', I have been able to reinterpret, partially or totally, around 100 of his other works," L'Amo said. 'First surrealist work'

“This painting can be considered the first surrealist work by Dalí­,” said Nicolas Descharnes, a French expert on Dalí­ who helped authenticate the painting. “It’s a historic artwork, because Dalí­ never depicted his inter-uterine birth in a painting so significantly. Even though he spoke about the subject, this is the only pictorial representation.”

It took several years for L’Amo to persuade art experts that this was indeed a Dalí­ original. Among the scientists and experts whom he enlisted was Interpol graphologist José Venzal, who analysed the picture’s signature and some words written at the bottom of the canvas. Venzal said spelling mistakes in the text, as well as the handwriting, had helped confirm Dalí­’s authorship.