Discovering Signed Salvador Dalí Lithographs in a Garage

Sometimes you can be surprised by the random objects that turn up in your garage. For example, in the house where I grew up, there were several farming implements that were never used. For someone else, those mysterious artifacts might be tools, books, or license plates. And sometimes, what appears to be a pile of forgotten items can turn out to be something extraordinarily valuable.

This was the case for one London resident who discovered 10 signed lithographs by the Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí, along with another five by Théo Tobiasse. These works are now heading to auction at Hansons Richmond and are expected to fetch up to £5,000 (about $5,523) when the auction starts on September 30.

“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,” said Hansons Richmond associate director Chris Kirkham. “They’d been tucked away and forgotten about for around 50 years. It felt quite surreal.”

As Kirkham explained, the prints had been bought decades ago for a home decoration project that was never completed. “The buyer paid a modest £500 for the lithographs, all unframed, during a closing down sale at a central London gallery in the 1970s,” he said in a statement. “He purchased them with a view to framing them for his home in Berkeley Square but never got round to it. So the prints ended up in his garage.”

In announcing the discovery, Kirkham also noted that the Dalí lithographs might sell for a relatively affordable price of between £300 and £500 (or $394 to $656) each. This could offer an entry point into Dalí’s work for art lovers with a modest budget. It serves as a reminder to occasionally check what treasures might be hiding in your own garage.