Salvator Mundi. Salvator Mundi is a painting attributed in whole or in part to the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c1499-1510.
Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in Luke Syson's major Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery, London, in 2011-12. Christie's claimed just after selling the work that most leading scholars consider it to be an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by other specialists, some of whom posit that he only contributed certain elements.
The painting depicts Jesus in an anachronistic blue Renaissance dress, making the sign of the cross with his right hand, while holding a transparent, non-refracting crystal orb in his left, signaling his role as Salvator Mundi and representing the celestial sphere of the heavens. Approximately thirty copies and variations of the work by students and followers of Leonardo have been identified.
Proposed preparatory chalk and ink drawings of the drapery by Leonardo are held in the British Royal Collection. The painting was sold at auction for US$ 450.3 million on 15 November 2017 by Christie's in New York to Prince Badr bin Abdullah, setting a new record for most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.
Prince Badr allegedly made the purchase on behalf of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Touris
Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in Luke Syson's major Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery, London, in 2011-12. Christie's claimed just after selling the work that most leading scholars consider it to be an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by other specialists, some of whom posit that he only contributed certain elements.
The painting depicts Jesus in an anachronistic blue Renaissance dress, making the sign of the cross with his right hand, while holding a transparent, non-refracting crystal orb in his left, signaling his role as Salvator Mundi and representing the celestial sphere of the heavens. Approximately thirty copies and variations of the work by students and followers of Leonardo have been identified.
Proposed preparatory chalk and ink drawings of the drapery by Leonardo are held in the British Royal Collection. The painting was sold at auction for US$ 450.3 million on 15 November 2017 by Christie's in New York to Prince Badr bin Abdullah, setting a new record for most expensive painting ever sold at public auction.
Prince Badr allegedly made the purchase on behalf of Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Touris
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