Lost Salvador Dalí painting bought for £150 sold at auction for £45,700

Cambridge auctioneers Cheffins authenticated the work as lost scene from a series of 500 paintings of The Arabian Nights that Dalí had intended to create in 1966. Photograph: Cheffins Auctioneers/PA

To the untrained eye, it looks more like an alien has landed on Chewbacca’s head than a masterpiece by Salvador Dalí.

But the watercolour and felt-tip painting – bought two years ago for £150 – has been sold at auction for £45,700, after it was identified as a lost illustration of an “old sultan” by the great surrealist artist.