Leonardo da Vinci’s long lost portrait of Christ ‘Salvator Mundi’ has sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million on Wednesday at Christie’s in New York – more than double the old mark for any work of art at auction.
The painting, only recently rediscovered and the last da Vinci left in private hands, fetched more than four times over the Christie’s pre-sale estimate of about $100 million.
‘Salvator Mundi’ – Italian for ‘Savior of the World’ – was purchased by an unidentified buyer bidding via telephone after a protracted bidding war that stretched to nearly 20 minutes at the New York auction house.
Salvator Mundi, an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ by Leonardo da Vinci which dates to about 1500, has gone under the auctioneers hammer
Christie’s auctioneer Jussi Pylkannen, taps the gavel as he ends bidding at $400 million for the painting at Christie’s, Wednesday
It was more than twice the old auction record set by Pablo Picasso’s painting ‘Women of Algiers (Version O)’ (‘Les Femmes D’Alger) which sold for $179.4 million 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 painting ‘Interchange,’ which was sold privately in September 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation to hedge fund manager Kenneth C. 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.
Members of Christie’s staff admire the work – the last privately owned Leonardo da Vinci painting
Bidding representatives react after Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ sold for $400 million at Christie’s
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 around 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.
Its path from Leonardo’s workshop to the auction block at Christie’s was not smooth. Once owned by King Charles I of England, it disappeared from view until 1900, when it resurfaced and was acquired by a British collector. At that time it was attributed to a Leonardo disciple, rather than to the master himself.
The painting was sold again in 1958 and then was acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted-over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 (8,445 euros). The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work by Leonardo.
The painting was sold Wednesday by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought it in 2013 for $127.5 million (108 million euros) in a private sale that became the subject of a continuing lawsuit.
Christie’s said most scholars agree that the painting is by Leonardo, though some critics have questioned the attribution and some say the extensive restoration muddies the work’s authorship.
One bidder even turned up with a mask of da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi for the Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s
Christie’s capitalized on the public’s interest in Leonardo, considered one of the greatest artists of all time, with a media campaign that labeled the painting ‘The Last Da Vinci.’ The work was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale.
In New York, where no museum owns a Leonardo, art lovers lined up outside Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters on Tuesday to view ‘Salvator Mundi.’
Svetla Nikolova, who is from Bulgaria but lives in New York, called the painting ‘spectacular.’
‘It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience,’ she said. ‘It should be seen. It’s wonderful it’s in New York. I’m so lucky to be in New York at this time.’