An antiques dealer stumbled upon the watercolor at a house clearance sale in Cambridge, England — and his hunch that it was a lost Salvador Dalí was just proven true.
CheffinsVecchio Sultano languished in obscurity for many years before it was sold in 2023.
A watercolor bought at a house clearance sale in England was recently identified as a lost work by Salvador Dalí.
The piece, titled Vecchio Sultano, sold for only £150 (roughly $190) at the clearance sale two years ago. Now, with plans to be auctioned off in October 2025, it’s estimated to sell for $40,000.
The watercolor depicts a scene from One Thousand and One Nights, the classic collection of Middle Eastern folktales, and is believed to be part of a series based on those tales that Dalí was working on. While Vecchio Sultano does not feature Dalí’s typical surrealist style, an eagle-eyed antiques dealer noticed his signature in the corner during the initial sale two years ago.
A Cambridge Antiques Dealer Stumbles Upon A Forgotten Salvador Dalí
Wikimedia CommonsSalvador Dalí created Vecchio Sultano based on a scene from One Thousand and One Nights.
In 2023, an antiques dealer who wishes to remain anonymous spotted a unique watercolor at a house clearance sale in Cambridge, England. The seller told the man that the work had previously been found in a garage in London.
The piece was 38 centimeters by 29 centimeters and was created with watercolor and felt tip, according to the auction house Cheffins. It depicts a sultan wearing a large, bejeweled turban, an image inspired by a scene out of One Thousand and One Nights.
During the house clearance sale, the antiques dealer realized that the work had a signature in the corner — one belonging to Salvador Dalí. Believing he had stumbled upon a Dalí original, he made a “spur of the moment” bid on the piece.
“I did a little bit of research, and I couldn’t believe what I was looking at,” the man told The Guardian.
Luckily for the buyer, there was only one other person interested in purchasing the unique piece. But after the man bid £150, the opposing buyer dropped out and the watercolor was now his.
The signature wasn’t the only detail that suggested that the artwork was authentic. The man also spotted a sticker on the back of the piece that showed it had been auctioned off by Sotheby’s in the 1990s.
After conducting additional research, the man discovered that the piece had, at one time, already been credited to Dalí, but had somehow lost its attribution since then. This type of loss of attribution is not common in the world of modern art, according to Cheffins associate Gabrielle Downie.
Now, the watercolor is estimated to sell for anywhere between $26,000 and $40,000 at an auction run by Cheffins on October 23, 2025.
Vecchio Sultano Was Part Of A Larger Unfinished Project
Wikimedia CommonsVecchio Sultano was part of a series that was originally planned to include 500 works.
Vecchio Sultano was created in 1966 and was one of 500 works that Dalí wanted to create based on the stories of One Thousand and One Nights.
Dalí’s friends and patrons Giuseppe and Mara Albaretto, who had commissioned the work, initially wanted him to illustrate the Bible, but Dalí insisted on rendering scenes from the famous collection of Arabic tales instead.
However, according to Downie, “It seems that this project was abandoned, with Dalí only having completed 100 of the intended 500 works.”
Of the 100 completed works, about half stayed within the Albaretto family, while the other half have been lost or destroyed. The works that had remained with the family were revealed for the first time in 2014.
“I think, given that Dalí engineered the commission to suit his whims, that he very much enjoyed this project and the subject matter,” Downie said. “It is most likely that the work in question came from the batch of 50 which were retained and later lost by the publishers.”
This is not the first time Dalí’s work has been found under unusual circumstances. In 2021, a woodcut of his that depicts a scene from Dante’s Divine Comedy, known as Purgatory Canto 32, was purchased in a North Carolina thrift shop for just $10.
After reading about this rediscovered Salvador Dalí watercolor, take a look at the story of a woman who purchased a $4 dollar painting from a thrift store that was estimated to be worth $250,000. Then, learn about the lost Caravaggio painting from the 17th century that was found in a French attic.
