Ten lithographs signed by Salvador Dalí are set to head to the auction block after being found in a London garage, the United Kingdom–based auction house Hansons Auctioneers said in a press release earlier this week.
The lithographs were found with five other lithographs by Theo Tobiasse, the French painter and engraver, in a garage in London’s posh Mayfair neighborhood.
“It was an amazing find,” Chris Kirkham, an associate director at Hansons Richmond, said in a statement. “I was invited to assess some antiques at a client’s home. During the visit the vendor took me to his garage and, lo and behold, out came this treasure trove of surrealist lithographs—all 15 of them. They’d been tucked away and forgotten about for around 50 years. It felt quite surreal. You never know what you’re going to uncover on a routine home visit.”
According to Kirkham, the buyer had purchased the lithographs for £500, or approximately $650, in a closing sale at a London gallery in the 1970s. He had planned to frame the works, but never did so, and ended up forgetting about them in the garage.
“He’s looking to retire and move abroad, so now his lithographs will finally see the light of day at auction,” Kirkham added.
The works, which will hit the block on September 30, are estimated at £300–£500 each for the Dalís and £100–£300 each for the Tobiasse works.
Some of the Dalí lithographs set to go to auction at Hansons in September.
That’s a far cry from the venerated Surrealist artist’s auction record, which was set at £13.5 million (approx. $17.8 million) for Portrait de Paul Éluard, a painting sold at Sotheby’s London in 2011. The highest price achieved for a Dalí lithograph was set last year in March by Madone à l’Enfant ou Madone Sixtine, which sold at the French auction house Osenat for $56,000.
Dali was one of the most famous artists of the 20th century, having become synonymous with Surrealism thanks to his many iconic works and enduring symbols, melting clocks to his Lobster Telephone. The artist continues to have a second life in the form of an AI doppelgänger that talks to museum patrons in Florida via his famed phone.
