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.

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

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