Damaged ‘Salvator Mundi’ Copy Nets $1 Million — While Original Leonardo Work’s Location Remains Unknown

Topline

A damaged copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi” believed to have been painted more than a century after the artist’s death sold for $1.1 million as the public’s fascination with the original work continues, even five years after the painting’s record $450 million sale and amid questions about where the work is now and if was even done by Leonardo.

Key Facts

The “Salvator Mundi ” copy, listed by Christie’s auction house as being completed around 1600 by an artist working in Italy who based the painting off Leonardo’s painting, was estimated to fetch only about $10,500 on the low end of its pre-sale estimate.

Despite considerable damage along the top and the bottom of the portrait, which shows Jesus holding his right hand raised in blessing, the work sold for 10 times as much.

The painting, from a private collection in the South of France according to Christie’s, is a copy of the landmark “Salvator Mundi” that sold for a groundbreaking $450 million at auction in 2017 after a nearly 20-minute bidding war, becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold.

Key Background

The original “Salvator Mundi” was touted by Christie’s as the last Leonardo in private hands, and crowds lined up around the entrance of the auction house’s Rockefeller Center location for a week before the auction to catch a glimpse of the work before the sale. The buyer was widely reported to be Saudi Arabian Prince Badr bin Abdullah al Saud on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism, and after the sale the Louvre Abu Dhabi said the painting would be put on display there. However, Prince Bader is widely speculated to have purchased the painting on behalf of his ally Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The planned unveiling of “Salvator Mundi” at the Louvre Abu Dhabi was abruptly canceled in 2018. In the five years since the auction, the painting has never been put on public display, and at one point was reported to have been kept on bin Salman’s yacht. It is still unclear where the painting is and why it remains hidden.

Tangent

There has been debate surrounding whether the $450 million painting was actually completed by Leonardo. Last year, the Prado Museum in Madrid, Spain, downgraded the painting to having been completed by Leonardo’s workshop rather than the master himself in the catalog of an exhibit dedicated to the artist. In 2019, researchers at the Louvre in Paris determined it was a work by Leonardo in preparation for a landmark exhibition that was meant to include the painting, according to a booklet set to be sold in the gift shop seen by The Art Newspaper. “Salvator Mundi” was pulled by its owners after the Louvre refused to hang it next to the “Mona Lisa,” and in response the museum did not publicize their authentication of the painting, according to The New York Times.

Surprising Fact

Fewer than 20 works attributed to Leonardo have survived to the present day, and high-quality copies can fetch millions at auction. Last year, a copy of the “Mona Lisa” sold for $3 million. The painting was sold by the family of Raymond Hekking, a French antiques dealer who was convinced his version of the “Mona Lisa ” was actually the original, not the one hanging in the Louvre. Hekking believed that the Louvre’s painting was switched with a copy when the “Mona Lisa” was stolen in 1911 and returned three years later.

Further Reading

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi Sold For More Than $450 Million, Breaking World Record (Forbes)