It stirred controversy when it was purchased by the City of Glasgow for the sum of £8,200 in 1952, with some believing it a ‘retrogressive’ extravagance the city could not afford.
Now thought to be worth more than £60 million, Salvador Dalí's Christ of St John of The Cross is regarded as one of Scotland’s most treasured paintings and the greatest work of art in Glasgow’s civic collection.
Featuring a dramatic depiction of the crucified Christ which features no thorns, nails or wounds, it was inspired by a drawing Dalí was shown by 16th-century Carmelite priest John of the Cross, which is preserved in the Convent of the Incarnation in Avila in central Spain.
The painting, which weighs 70kg and measures 205 cm × 116 cm, proves a major draw for visitors to Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, helping make the museum and art gallery one of Scotland's most popular free attractions.
It is so famous that Glasgow City Council, which owns the sole copyright for the painting, hired lawyers in 2009 to chase companies that had reproduced it without paying after it estimated that unauthorised reproductions were losing the city thousands of pounds each year.
Now, our sister title The Herald can exclusively reveal how much income Dalí's painting generates for Glasgow City Council each year.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request submitted by our sister title The Herald, the council provided an approximate total for income generated from the painting between September 2018 and August 2025.
Photo library sales of image from licensing use of images and prints over the period totalled £12,099.91, while income generated from Glasgow Life Retail - via the Glasgow Life online shop or gift shops located within Glasgow's cultural landmarks - totalled £94,983.99.
As such, the total income from September 2018 to August 2025 from intellectual property rights of the image from sales of licences and products using images of the painting is £107,083.90 - which calculates to around £15,300 per year.
Glasgow Life, the arms length organisation to the council which manages the council's museums and art galleries, sells a number of products using images of Dalí's Christ of St John of The Cross via its online shop or at gift shops located within Glasgow's cultural landmarks.
The items for sale include: two reproduction prints (retailing at £12.50 and £15 each); a wooden magnet (retailing at £5); a postcard (retailing at £1); a prayer card (retailing at £1); a greetings card (retailing at £3); and a notebook (retailing at £5.50).
In 2022, GMB Union boss Gary Smith urged Glasgow City Council to sell Dalí's Christ of St John of The Cross to help fund the city's equal pay settlements, a figure estimated to be around £500 million at the time.
Mr Smith said: "Time and again we’ve urged the council leadership to pick up the phone to government and ask for help to ease the pressure on the city’s finances and to help resolve the equal pay crisis in Scotland’s biggest city, but it’s fallen on deaf ears.
“If the council really thinks it can fix this alone then it had better start making plans to flog the Dali, because there is no way it’s discrimination is going to be paid for off the back of hard-pressed workers in a cost-of-living crisis.”
A decade earlier, reports surfaced that Dalí's world-famous masterpiece had been the subject of an £80 million bid by the Spanish government.
However, in response to the Freedom of Information request submitted by our sister title The Herald, Glasgow City Council also confirmed that neither the council nor Glasgow Life have received any offers to purchase the painting.
In 2023, the Glasgow said a temporary ‘adios’ to the painting as it went on a sixth-month loan to the Dalí Theatre-Museum in Dalí’s home town of Figueres, in Catalonia, Spain.
The loan represented the first time it had gone on display in Spain since it was exhibited in Madrid and Barcelona at the 1st Biennial of Latin American Art in 1952.
It was originally scheduled to arrive at the museum in Figueres - where Dalí himself is buried in an unmarked crypt - in November of 2020 but was rescheduled due to the pandemic.
The exhibition - the largest the museum has hosted since it opened over 50 years ago - also showcased the comprehensive work by the Centre for Dalinian Studies - whose objective is to foster research into the most diverse aspects of the oeuvre and life of Dalí.
Last year, the painting was also loaned to the Vatican and displayed at the Church of San Marcello al Corso in Rome as part of a series of events leading up to the 2025 Jubilee Year. The exhibition was requested by the Vatican Dicastery for Evangelization, which is presided over directly by the Pope.
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