An odd tale:

Ancona, October 12 – An art expert has uncovered a sculpture of Christ on the Cross he claims Salvador Dali made to thank an Italian friar who exorcised him .

Armando Ginesi found the piece, measuring 60cm by 30cm, among the personal belongings of Gabriele Maria Berardi, a friar who died in 1984, in a storeroom in Rome .

He has shown the work to two Spanish experts on the Surrealist artist. They agreed that there are "sufficient stylistic reasons" to believe it was made by Dali .

According to Ginesi, Berardi told friends and relatives he exorcised Dali of a demon in 1947 during a spell in France. At the time Berardi had temporarily been suspended from his Italian religious order – apparently for failing to honour financial commitments. He did a variety of jobs, but continued to perform religious rites, including exorcisms .

The reported exorcism took place during a period in which Dali had broken away from Surrealism and started producing more realistic works, often with religious imagery