Da Vinci painting sells for record $450M US.
NEW YORK — A painting of Christ by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci sold for a record $450 million US at auction Wednesday evening.
The painting, called Salvator Mundi, Italian for Saviour of the World, is one of fewer than 20 paintings by Leonardo known to exist and the only one in private hands.
The 66-centimetre-tall painting dates from about 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissancestyle robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.
Its path from Leonardo’s workshop to the auction block at Christie’s was not smooth.
Once owned by King Charles I of England, it disappeared from view until 1900, when it resurfaced and was acquired by a British collector. At that time it was attributed to a Leonardo disciple, rather than to the master himself.
The painting was sold again in 1958 and then acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted-over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 US. The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work by Leonardo.
The painting was sold Wednesday by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought it in 2013 for $127.5 million US in a private sale that became the subject of a continuing lawsuit.
Christie’s says most scholars agree that the painting is by Leonardo, though some critics have questioned the attribution and some say the extensive restoration muddies the work’s authorship.
Christie’s capitalized on the public’s interest in Leonardo, considered one of the greatest artists of all time, with a media campaign that labelled the painting “The Last Da Vinci.” The work was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale.
The highest previous price paid for a work of art at auction was $179.4 million US, for Picasso’s Women of Algiers (Version O) in May 2015, also at Christie’s in New York.
A backer of the Salvator Mundi auction had guaranteed a bid of at least $100 million US.
The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million US for Willem de Kooning’s “Interchange” in September 2015. It was sold privately by the David Geffen Foundation to hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin.
In New York, where no museum owns a Leonardo, art lovers lined up outside Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters on Tuesday to view Salvator Mundi.
Svetla Nikolova, who is from Bulgaria but lives in New York, called the painting “spectacular.”
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,” she said. “It should be seen. It’s wonderful it’s in New York. “
The identity of the buyer was not immediately disclosed.
“I can hardly convey how exciting it is for those of us directly involved in its sale,” said Christie’s specialist Alan Wintermute. “The word masterpiece barely begins to convey the rarity, importance and sublime beauty of Leonardo’s painting.”