High ambitions

Da Vinci sold for $450m headed to Abu Dhabi

International, Inc.

The firm’s website describes him as “one of Saudi Arabia’s youngest” entrepreneurs, present in sectors including real estate, telecommunications and recycling.

The sale more than doubled the previous record of $179.4 million paid for Pablo Picasso’s The Women of Algiers (Version O) in 2015, also in New York.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi opened on November 8 in the presence of French President Emmanuel Macron, who described the new museum as a “bridge between civilizations.”

It is the first of three museums slated to open on the emirate’s Saadiyat Island, with plans also in place for an edition of New York’s Guggenheim.

The island will also feature the Zayed National Museum, which had signed a loan deal with the British Museum – although the arrangement has come increasingly into question due to construction delays.

Featuring a vast silver-toned dome, the Louvre Abu Dhabi was designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, drawing inspiration from Arab design and evoking both an open desert and the sea.

The museum opened with about 600 pieces of art including items from early Mesopotamia.

Under a 30-year agreement, France provides expertise, lends works of art and organizes exhibitions in return for 1 billion euros ($1.16 billion).

The first works on loan from the Louvre in Paris include another painting by Da Vinci – La Belle Ferronniere, one of his portraits of women.

Salvator Mundi, which means “Savior of the World,” went on public display in 2011 in a dramatic unveiling at The National Gallery in London, where the work was declared to be the first newly discovered Da Vinci painting in a century.

It is one of fewer than 20 paintings generally accepted as being from the Renaissance master’s own hand, according to Christie’s.

It had sold for a mere 45 British pounds ($60) in 1958, when the painting was thought to have been a copy, and was lost until it resurfaced at a regional auction in 2005.

Its latest sale was initiated by Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev, the boss of soccer club AS Monaco.

He had bought the painting in 2013 for $127.5 million although he later accused a Swiss art dealer of overcharging him.