Madrid: A judge in the Spanish capital Madrid has ordered artist Salvador Dali's body be exhumed to get samples for a paternity suit, Spanish media report.
Spanish woman Pilar Abel says the painter is her father, after he had an affair with with her mother - a maid - in 1955.
![Surrealist painter Salvador Dali died in 1989.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170626163816im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/z/2/p/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwz2gv.png/1498485399781.jpg)
Ms Abel first began to investigate her paternity a decade ago, after she said her mother and grandmother repeatedly told her the renowned artist was her father.
In 2007, she obtained hair and skin from a death mask of Dali and took a DNA test to see if they matched her. However, the results were inconclusive.
![Dali painted noted works including <i>The Persistence of Memory</i>.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170626163816im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/z/2/p/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwz2gv.png/1498485399781.jpg)
She then attempted to find personal items belonging to Dali, who died in 1989 aged 85.
In 2015, she filed a paternity suit seeking help to gather DNA evidence.
In ordering Dali's body to be exhumed, judge María del Mar Crespo said there were no personal objects of the artist to be used in the paternity test, therefore testing his body was necessary.
He is buried at Figueres in Spain's north-east, at the site of the Dalí Theatre and Museum.
![Pilar Abel claims Dali (pictured) fathered her in 1955.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170626163816im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/z/2/p/8/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwz2gv.png/1498485933566.jpg)
Spanish newspaper El País reported the exhumation - which could happen as early as July - can be appealed in court.
Dali found fame as a painter in the surrealist and post-impressionist movements of the mid-20th century.
Some of his noted works include The Persistence of Memory, depicting melting clocks on a warped landscape, and The Burning Giraffe.
AAP with Fairfax Media