17.11.2017, 17:10

Leonardo da Vinci's painting sold for $ 450 million

A unique painting "The Savior of the World" by Da Vinci was sold at an auction for $ 450 million. Unfortunately, the name of the new owner did not give his name. Now for everyone the intrigue - who is the new owner of Da Vinci's "Savior of the World"?

On the evening of November 15, there was a sensation in artistic circles: the painting "Savior of the World" or "Salvator Mundi", attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, was sold at auction for 400 million dollars plus a fee of 50 million dollars. "Savior of the World" has become the most expensive painting on the planet.

"Savior of the World" by Leonardo Da Vinci

At the Christie’s auction in New York on November 15, an unknown buyer paid an unimaginable sum for him - $ 450.3 million. This was the logical conclusion of an 11-year epic with the rediscovery, research, restoration and resale of the painting.

In the painting, Jesus with chestnut locks is staring at the viewer. In his left hand rests a crystal sphere, and his right is raised in a blessing gesture. According to Professor Martin Kemp of Oxford, "The Savior literally holds the welfare of the world and its inhabitants in the palm of his hand."

Leonardo unambiguously presented the Redeemer not as a deity, but as a man - which is extremely unusual for that time - without a crown or halo.

Journalists tried in every possible way to find out who the mysterious buyer was, but they could not achieve anything.

"We do not comment on the personalities of the buyers, sorry," snapped Christie’s CEO Guillaume Cerutti. "Bids came from all over the world."

The auction house's refusal to disclose incognito - even gender and region of residence - of the mysterious tycoon has puzzled art historians, dealers and collectors. There are not so many billionaires in the world who are able to buy a painting for $ 400 million and pay another 50 million in fees.

It is assumed that this is either a millionaire from the United States, who decided to donate a Da Vinci painting to the museum in his homeland, since there is only one Da Vinci painting in the whole country - "Portrait of Ginevra de Benchi".

Portrait of Ginevra de Benci - another painting by da Vinci

Or it could be a billionaire collector from the East or China, who will stop at nothing to get such a rarity.

It is precisely known that the "Savior of the World" belonged to King Charles I of England (1600-1649). The record of the painting is contained in the register of the royal collection, compiled a year after the execution of the monarch.

Between 1763 and 1900, nothing is known about the panel. During this time, a thicker beard was added to Christ, and his face and hair were so repainted that the image changed almost beyond recognition.

In 1958, the Savior of the World was auctioned off for only £ 45 ($ 60 in 2017 prices). Then the panel disappeared again for almost half a century and appeared only in 2005 at a regional American auction without any attribution.

During the restoration, it was discovered that the work belongs to the hand of Leonardo Da Vinci. During the restoration process, Dr. Modestini suspected that she was working with a work by Leonardo da Vinci.

“I went home and thought I was crazy. My hands were shaking,” the scientist recalled.

The art of making the hair and folds of Christ's garment is said to be proof of authorship; da Vinci's signature sfumato technique - shading paint with the palm of his hand; paint composition; detailed drawing of hands. Skeptics draw attention to the fact that the author was unable to correctly convey the distortion of the picture, which would have created a glass ball. No documentary evidence of Leonardo's work on "The Savior of the World" has survived.

In 2011, "The Savior of the World" was shown to the public for the first time at the exhibition "Leonardo da Vinci. The Artist at the Court of Milan" at the National Gallery in London. However, in 2013, the "Savior of the World" was again on the auction podium. Then it was bought for 80 million dollars by the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier and a few days later resold to the Russian tycoon Dmitry Rybolovlev for 127.5 million.

A few years later, the billionaire suspected the art dealer of fraudulent transactions with works of art and filed a lawsuit. Salvator Mundi has become one of the stumbling blocks in legal battles. Bouvier dismisses all accusations.

Rybolovlev decided to sell the painting, and this time Una went for a record amount of $ 450 million.

The Savior of the World was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1499. The artist depicted Christ. With his right hand he blesses all living, with his left hand he holds a symbolic globe.
This is the only painting from the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci that is in a private collection.
During the 17th and 19th centuries, it was considered lost. It declared itself in 2004 at the Christie's auction, and was acquired by the collector of antique paintings Robert Simon as the work of one of da Vinci's students.
In 2007, Simon approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a request to study the details of its creation.
The experts concluded that this work belongs to da Vinci's brush.
After careful repeated checking, the assumption was confirmed.
In 2011, at the exhibition of works by Leonardo da Vinci, this picture was first seen by the public.
In 2013, "The Savior of the World" was again presented at an auction - it was acquired by an art dealer from Switzerland already with a confident postscript Leonardo da Vinci for $ 80 million, immediately resold to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev for $ 127.5 million.
In November 2017, at a public auction in New York, the owner provided an opportunity to compete for this painting. It was sold for 450 million 312 thousand 500 dollars. The buyer remained unknown.

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Painting by Leonardo da Vinci Savior of the World: description, artist biography, customer reviews, other works of the author. A large catalog of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci on the website of the BigArtShop online store.

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Leonardo da Vinci is an Italian scientist, inventor, artist, and writer.

Born into the family of a notary. Soon after the birth of his son, his father left the family, marrying a wealthy woman. In the first years of his life, Leonardo was brought up by his mother, a simple peasant woman, then his father took the boy to him. When Leonardo was 13 years old, his stepmother died. The father married again and became a widower again. He wanted to see his son continue his work, but in his youth Leonardo's talent as an artist was clearly manifested, and his father still sends him to Florence to the studio of Andrea Verrocchio. In addition to sculpture, drawing, modeling, Leonardo masters the humanities, chemistry, drawing, metallurgy.

At the age of 20, Leonardo da Vinci received the qualification of a master, awarded to him by the Guild of St. Luke. His teacher Andrea del Verrocchio trusts the talented student to take part in his work, allows him to take orders for paintings.

The next period of Leonardo's life is characterized by his fascination with the image of the Madonna.

In 1481, commissioned by the Monastery of San Donato a Sopeto, Leonardo began work on the painting The Adoration of the Magi. Suddenly interrupting work (Leonardo was inclined to leave the work unfinished), the artist leaves Florence. The reason for his departure was the unfavorable attitude towards him by the Medici family, which was then in power.

Leonardo travels to Milan to the Sforza court. There he plays the lute, becomes known as the inventor of weapons.

In Milan, Leonardo begins to create a "Treatise on Painting". This work lasted until the death of the genius.

In 1483 he received an order for the painting of the altar from the Franciscan Brotherhood of the Immaculate Conception. He has been doing it for three years. An interesting fact is that he had to go to court regarding payment, the trial lasted 25 years.

Leonardo receives orders from Sforza: becoming a court painter, he paints portraits.

Da Vinci invents a rolling mill, a machine for the production of files, a machine for making cloth. Also during this period, Leonardo creates sketches of temples, takes part in the construction of Milan Cathedral. He developed the city sewerage system, carried out land reclamation work.

From 1495 to 1498 Leonardo worked on The Last Supper.

After the loss of power by Sforza in 1499, Leonardo returned to Florence.

In 1502 Leonardo became an architect and chief engineer in the service of Cesare Borgia. During this period, da Vinci designs canals for draining swamps, creates military maps.

In 1503, work began on the portrait of Mona Lisa.

For the next decade, Leonardo wrote little, trying to devote more time to anatomy, mathematics and mechanics.

In 1513 Leonardo moved to Rome under the patronage of Giuliano Medici. Here for three years he studied the manufacture of mirrors, mathematics, investigated the human voice and created new formulations of paints.

In 1517, after the death of the Medici, Leonardo became a court painter in Paris. Here he works on land reclamation, hydrography and very often communicates with King Francis I.

At the age of 67, Leonardo da Vinci died. His body was buried in the Church of Saint Florent-ten, but the grave was lost during many years of wars.

The texture of the canvas, quality paints and large format prints allow our reproductions of Leonardo da Vinci to match the original. The canvas will be stretched onto a special stretcher, after which the picture can be framed in the frame of your choice.

Once painting by Leonardo da Vinci"Salvator Mundi", the name of which is translated into Russian as "Savior of the World", was auctioned for a fabulous sum of 450 million dollars, and even greater passions flared up around it than they burned before.

Some researchers, including the editor-in-chief of the President newspaper, scientist, excellent analyst and writer Andrei Tyunyaev, argue that this painting is a fake.

Firstly, the authors of such a loud statement argue that even the translation into Russian of the title of the picture is not correct, or, let's say, too free. "Salvator Mundi" would be more accurately translated as "The Ark by the Mountain." That is, the author portrayed Jesus Christ as an ark bearing both male and female sexual characteristics. By the way, from this belief in Europe, a mental religious illness is increasingly spreading and lesbians and gays are proliferating. And even this alone can serve as confirmation that the picture was painted not earlier than the 19th century.

Secondly, in the painting, Christ is holding a glass ball - a spherical model of our Earth. According to experts, the painting "Salvator Mundi" was painted at the end of the 15th century; Leonardo da Vinci himself died in 1519. However, the work of Nicolaus Copernicus on the heliocentric system of the world ("On the rotation of the celestial spheres") was published only in 1543, moreover, before the Earth took a spherical shape in the minds of scientists, it took centuries after this publication of the scientist. After all, at that time, please note, Nicolaus Copernicus himself was depicted in the same perspective as Christ on "Salvator Mundi". At the same time, Copernicus holds in his hand a flat model of the world, and Christ is already spherical, which Leonardo da Vinci could not simply know in principle, and therefore depict. The spherical model of the Earth became traditional only in the 18th-19th centuries. It is to this period that the writing of "The Savior of the World" can be attributed, from which it follows that the famous Italian artist had nothing to do with her ...

However, such "convincing" reasoning does not fit well-known data that Leonardo da Vinci drew drawings of helicopters, submarines, recently, for example, in his drafts they also found drawings of a modern smartphone, from which some brave minds even made the assumption that the famous artist and scientist was a time traveler. If da Vinci drew helicopters in the 15th century, which would appear only in the middle of the 20th century, why could not he then depict a spherical Earth?

Be that as it may, watch the video below, in which a hidden camera captured the emotions of people viewing Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Salvator Mundi". It makes the impression on the audience, apparently, amazing. And although this cannot serve as one hundred percent proof that the canvas is genuine, it is not very convincing to speak of a fake either ...

(rutube) (/ rutube)

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1. Error in the painting Salvator Mundi ("Savior of the world")

If you look closely at the picture, you will notice that the sphere in Jesus' hands is transparent.... But who, if not Leonardo, who studied optics up and down, should have known that the background behind the crystal sphere could not be like that. It should enlarge and become indistinct. Why the great artist made such a mistake is not known for certain.

2. Surprising fact about the "Last Supper"

What can unite Judas and Jesus in this canvas? There is a parable according to which the model for both was the same person. Unfortunately, who it was exactly, information has not reached our days.

However, according to legend, da Vinci found his Jesus in the church choir, where he served as a choir. Later, when the fresco was almost completed and the master could not find anyone for the image of Judas, Leonardo noticed a very drunk man in the ditch with traces of riotous life on his face. When da Vinci completed the image of Judas, the sitter admitted that he was familiar with this image and he posed for the artist as Jesus 3 years ago.

3. Another amazing fact about the "Last Supper"

Another interesting nuance of this fresco. An overturned salt shaker lies next to Judas... It is interesting that this fact can be a clear example of the belief that spilled salt is a cause for trouble. Indeed, the canvas depicts the moment when Jesus says that one of those gathered will betray him.

4. Is this painting by Leonardo da Vinci?

Found the painting "Portrait of Isabella d'Este", which, according to scientists, belongs to the brush of the brilliant artist... This is indicated by the pigment and the primer, identical to other paintings by Leonardo, as well as the very image of the woman, incredibly similar to the Mona Lisa (in particular the smile).

Leonardo da Vinci Salvator Mundi

In the London National Gallery, within the framework of Leonardo's exhibition, the public will be shown for the first time the painting "The Savior of the World"for several centuriesconsidered lost. The discovery of this unique artifact in June was reported by an authoritative magazine Artnews, citing a statement by Robert Simon, a dealer in the painting's owner pool. They managed to acquire the work in 2004 at an undisclosed auction for an undisclosed amount. In July of this year, Simon issued a press release stating that after numerous examinations, a number of scientists believe that the authorship of the painting belongs to Leonardo da Vinci. The dealer also said that this particular canvas is the missing original, from which the artist's students made copies and engravings.

The overwhelming news seemed to have divided the art world into two camps: some art historians and critics compare this find with the discovery of the planet, others are at least wary of it. An employee of the Metropolitan Museum, who prefers not to advertise his name, single-handedly confirmed the authenticity of the "Savior of the World" to Artnews. According to him, initially, a large amount of paint really made the picture look like a poorly made copy, but when experts cleaned it layer by layer with jeweler's scrupulousness, they discovered an amazingly delicate painting and there was no doubt: they had a long-lost original in front of them.

However, when the painting was submitted for research at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the museum curator declined to comment on the artifact's authenticity. Another well-known art historian, a connoisseur of da Vinci's technique, Carlo Pedretti, not only does not believe in the authenticity of The Savior, but even considers the whole story with the discovery of the canvas to be a "sophisticated marketing operation."

In his opinion, only a pale likeness, the work of one of his students, moreover, not the most talented, is given out for the real da Vinci. At the end of an article published in the official newspaper of the Vatican, the famous art critic and curator urges not to chase chimeras like "the next" Savior ", but simply to look at the picture to understand that it does not belong to the brush of the great painter.

Despite such an ambiguous assessment of the find in the press, many scientists specializing in the work of da Vinci, recognized the authenticity of the painting, which allowed the National Gallery in London to exhibit her along with the recognized masterpieces of the painter.

Leonardo da Vinci "Lady with an Ermine"

Interestingly, the authenticity of one of the canvases presented at the exhibition, "Ladies with an Ermine, was also considered controversial for a long time, but over time it gained public recognition.

Undoubtedly, the inclusion of this painting in the exposition of the exhibition dedicated to the Milanese period of da Vinci's work will strengthen the position of the painting in the art world. However, it is unclear why laboratory studies have not yet been carried out, such as, for example, spectrography, whichwould justify the loud statements of experts and without which any assessments seem unfounded.

Albrecht Durer "Self-portrait"

The Salvator Mundi theme is more characteristic of Northern Renaissance art, usually conveyed through the frontal image of Christ carrying the globe in one hand and blessing humanity with the other. Artists such as Jan Van Eyck, Durer, Titian, El Greco and others have addressed this motive. At the end of his life, Leonardo also wrote this plot, as evidenced by the description of the painting by the "father of art history" Giorgio Vasari, as well as numerous drawings and sketches of da Vinci himself and engravings by his students. To date, only 15 works of the great genius are known, which makes a find of this kind invaluable.