$200 Estate Sale Find Unveils Hidden Salvador Dalí Masterpiece Worth $40,000—How Did No One Notice?
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.
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