Disputed Leonardo fails to show up at the Louvre

THE world’s most expensive painting, Salvator Mundi, has failed to show up to a major Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the Louvre, despite a request by the Paris museum to borrow the controversial work.

The painting, which made headlines worldwide when it sold for $450million (£354million) at Christie’s in New York in 2017, was not at a press viewing of the exhibition on Friday marking the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death.

However, after months of speculation over its provenance and whereabouts, the curator expressed hope that it may yet arrive. The show opens to the public on Oct 24.

Salvator Mundi’s buyer has been identified as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who reportedly agreed that it would become a star of the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

However, the display in Abu Dhabi was unexpectedly halted last year amid debate over the painting’s authenticity.

Some of the world’s leading Leonardo experts, including Martin Kemp, emeritus professor of art history at Oxford, insist it is the lost work of the master. Others have expressed reservations or have been downright dismissive.

Vincent Delieuvin, the Louvre exhibition’s co-curator, told The Daily Telegraph, the museum had asked to borrow the work for the show and still held out hope it would turn up in the nick of time. “We would like to have the painting,” he said, adding that visitors would have to come to the show “to see if you see it or not”.

The painting was purchased by two US art dealers in 2005 from a New Orleans estate sale for $1,175 (£913) and after years of restoration experts became convinced it was a lost Leonardo.