A fortuitous discovery turned into a surprising artistic rediscovery and a major adjudication on the international market. An original painting by Salvador Dalí, purchased for only 150 pounds during a house clearance in Cambridge, England(we had covered its story in July), was sold at auction for 45,700 pounds (about 52,000 euros) by Cheffins during the Art & Design Sale on Oct. 24. The work, titled Old Sultan, was estimated between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds (22,900-34,000 euros), but it exceeded expectations, finding a foreign buyer after a lively competition among collectors.
The painting is a mixed-media composition done in watercolor and marker. It depicts a scene from the Thousand and One Nights, as part of a project of 500 illustrations that Dalí devised inspired by the famous Middle Eastern fairy tales. The ambitious cycle was commissioned by wealthy Italian collector Giuseppe Albaretto and his wife Mara, patrons and close friends of the Catalan painter. The work’s seller, a Cambridge antiquarian and art dealer who chose to remain anonymous, had purchased the painting in 2023, without suspecting that he was looking at an original Dalí. Only later, thanks to the expertise of Cheffins auction house, was the work identified and authenticated. “I am over the moon with this result and grateful for the work done by Cheffins,” said the seller. “It was exciting to see the painting go up for auction and receive the recognition it deserves. The final price is in line with expectations and rewards the effort and research we put into this piece.”
Cheffins director Brett Tryner called the sale “a significant rediscovery for Dali scholars.” The work, he explained, had already made an appearance on the market in the 1990s, when it was offered by Sotheby’s as attributed to the Surrealist master, only to disappear from the art market’s radar. “It is unusual today for a work attributed to a world-renowned artist to disappear for so long,” commented Tryner. “Researching and cataloging this piece has been a fascinating journey, and we are thrilled that the result has exceeded estimates.”
The Thousand and One Nights cycle represents one of the lesser-known but most curious projects in Dali’s career. Commissioned in the 1950s by Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto, the series was to include five hundred illustrations inspired by Arabic tales. The Albaretto couple, who had a personal relationship with the artist, intended to publish the entire corpus with the publishing house Rizzoli. However, Dalí abandoned the project after producing about 100 works. Half of these remained in the Rizzoli archives, where many were lost or damaged, while the other half remained with the Albarettos, later inherited by their daughter Christina (of whom Dalí had been godfather).
In 2014, the Folio Society published fifty of those illustrations still in the Albaretto family’s possession, reviving interest in the entire project and fueling curiosity about the fate of the never-published works. It is believed that Old Sultan belonged precisely to the group preserved at Rizzoli, traces of which had been lost for decades.
The authentication work was long and painstaking. According to Cheffins, the seller had learned that the painting had been sitting in a London garage for years before resurfacing during the clearing of a house in downtown Cambridge. His experience in the field and ability to recognize elements of authenticity were instrumental in bringing the piece back to light.
After a joint research phase between the seller and the Cheffins team, the work was examined by the world’s leading Salvador Dali expert, Nicolas Descharnes, who confirmed its authenticity and stylistic consistency with other known examples of the project, both in technique and paper quality. This recognition definitively established the original nature of the painting, paving the way for its presentation on the international market.
The adjudication at £45,700, a figure that includes commission and VAT, confirms the strong interest that the market continues to have in Dalí, not only for his most famous canvases but also for his graphic and illustrative works, evidence of his inexhaustible visual imagination. Cheffins’ Brett Tryner concludes, “The seller was told that the painting had been stored in a garage in London before being unveiled during the clearing of a house in downtown Cambridge. Thanks to his extensive knowledge and concern for authenticity, this important piece was reintroduced to the art market.”
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| England, five-figure sale for a Dalí that was bought for only £150 |
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