Da Vinci painting sells for $450m

Visitors to Christie’s auction house wait outside to view Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi on Tuesday in New York. The painting sold for a record $450.3 million — double the previous mark for any work of art at auction — on Wednesday. Art lovers had lined up at special pre-sale exhibitions, also in Hong Kong, San Francisco and London, to see the only work by the Renaissance master in private hands. The 500-year-old oil painting depicting Jesus Christ holding a crystal orb, called Salvator Mundi or “Savior of the World”, is one of fewer than 20 paintings by da Vinci known to exist, according to Christie’s.

JULIE JACOBSON / AP