The surreal journey of Salvador Dalí’s legs in a cardboard box: A window into the DNA of human creativity

The surreal journey of Salvador Dalí’s legs in a cardboard box: A window into the DNA of human creativity

A cardboard box containing half of the right leg of painter Salvador Dalí traveled 435 miles across Spain a decade ago, from his tomb in Figueres, in the province of Girona, to the laboratory of geneticist Antonio Alonso in the Madrid suburb of Las Rozas. The package also contained three teeth, four fingernails and a lock of the artist’s hair. The scene resembled a surrealist oil painting by Dalí himself, with its imagery of dismembered corpses.…