Rare da Vinci painting sells for $450 million at auction

NEW YORK — A painting of Christ by the Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci sold for $450 million at auction Wednesday, obliterating previous records for artworks sold at auction or privately.

The painting, called Salvator Mundi, Italian for “Savior of the World,” is one of fewer than 20 paintings by Leonardo known to exist and the only one in private hands. It was sold by Christie’s auction house, which didn’t immediately identify the buyer.

The highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction had been $179.4 million, for Picasso’s Women of Algiers (Version O)

in May 2015, also at Christie’s in New York. The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million, for Willem de Kooning’s Interchange, sold privately in September 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation to hedgefund manager Kenneth Griffin.

A backer of the Salvator

Mundi auction had guaranteed a bid of at least $100 million, the opening bid of the auction, which ran for 19 minutes. The price hit $300 million about halfway through the bidding.

People in the auction house gallery applauded and cheered when the bidding reached $300 million and when the hammer came down on the final bid, $400 million. The record sale price of $450 million includes the buyer’s premium, a fee paid by the winner to the auction house.

The 26-inch-tall Leonardo painting dates from about 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.