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Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christie's in New York for $450.3m . His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. The documentary covers much of the same ground as The Lost Leonardo, but less stylishly, with too many stock establishing shots of cities. Author of. On permanent display at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on 14 December 1962. This Leonardo da Vinci's portrait paintings are of Ginevra de' Benci, who was a rather popular Florentine woman. And Lewis has a new eight-episode podcast, Art Bust: Scandalous Stories of the Art World, which promises stories of "the ugliest crimes, the biggest scandals and the murky in-between." The two documentaries arrive at a time when films, podcasts and pop culture itself seem fascinated by art crimes, mysteries and forgeries. All episodes of the Art Bust podcast are available now. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to ourFacebookpage or message us onTwitter. Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, hidden away by order of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is the world's most expensive painting, Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi. Quiz: Ancient Illustrations Showing Us the Way, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonardo-da-Vinci, Social Studies for Kids - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Humanities LibreTexts - Leonardo da Vinci, Art Encyclopedia - Biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, University of California Museum of Paleontology - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Web Gallery of Art - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Leonardo da Vinci - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Art and accomplishment: Leonardo as artist-scientist, Art and accomplishment: Painting and drawing. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon. Leonardo da Vinci paintings that is on public display in the Western Hemisphere. Since the painting first arrived at the Louvre in 1815, "Mona Lisa" has received plenty of love letters and flowers from admirers. He also considered a painting done by Renaissance artist Pontormo, which was purchased by the Jay Paul Getty Museum for $35.2 million at Christie's in 1989. We should note here that we did reach out to Christie's, as well as Bill Gates to ask if they had any comments on the value of the Codex today. Here's how much the artwork is worth! MICHELA TINDERA: So its 1994, and were listening to an auction in a salesroom at Christie's in Manhattan. In this episode, we're taking you inside the world of rare books, manuscripts, and Old Masters works to tell you about how we've estimated the value of one very special notebook, with ties to the world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction: the Salvator Mundi. For this notebook, we considered values ranging from $50 million, all the way up to $4 billion. Is it even a Leonardo at all? The Christie's sale itself was a highly staged drama, beginning with a marketing video that showed not the painting but the faces of observers most are ordinary people but one of them is Leonardo DiCaprio looking reverently at the image as if they were seeing Christ himself. Whoever cut it up would be pilloried forever. The most famous paintings, especially old master works created before 1803, are generally owned or held at museums, for viewing by patrons. According to the provenance in the auction catalogue, a few Italian artists own the Codex after da Vinci's death, including a painter named Giuseppe Ghezzi, who apparently sold it in 1717 to Thomas Coke, a man who eventually became England's Earl of Leicester. Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman the epitome of a true Renaissance man. And that's the number we're using to value it. This stands as the most expensive painting by a living artist. A Belgian banker and collector who bought it in 1939 for $18,000. The current record price is approximately US$450.3 million (which includes commission), paid for Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (c.1500). Joining me for this is Chase Peterson-Withorn, an editor on the Forbes wealth team. Amidst all these delightfully tangled histories, nothing rivals the Salvator Mundi. It's worth at least what Gates paid for it. She is a captivating, elegant presence on screen, with a whispery voice and wide eyes behind signature black or red-framed glasses. No one in the art world knows for sure where the painting is. It is believed to have been compiled between 1506 and 1510. The disciples, devastated by Christ stating one of them would cause his death, convey their feelings dramatically through their body language. Bin Salman himself visited President Emmanuel Macron in Paris while the loan was dangling in the balance. In 2011, the National Gallery included it in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan. One sold for nearly $6 million, and the other for $5.2 million. Whereas Picasso and Warhol became wealthy men, van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 French francs (approximately $2,000 in 2018 dollars) in 1890, to the Belgian impressionist painter and heiress Anna Boch. This portrait was painted in Florence from 1474 to 1478. So that was kind of the basic first principle. MASSEY: Still with me then at five-million five hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand. But one tries to lay out in a rational way, why one has a higher value than the other, why one has a lesser market appeal, and then try from that to come up with a single value. Five-point-five million dollars to start. Leonardos gracious but reserved personality and elegant bearing were well-received in court circles. - The world's greatest art detective, - The men who Leonardo da Vinci loved, - The detail that unlocks the Mona Lisa. Read about our approach to external linking. So, I think we could legitimately set the floor at that price. However, other critics have disagreed with the truth of that claim. Many factors seem to have converged to create this flourishing moment for true art crime. In fact, it was also noted in the Codexs 1994 auction catalogue written by late da Vinci scholar Carlo Pedretti, that the Mona Lisa is, "indeed a visual synthesis of Leonardo's scientific knowledge as summed up in the Codex.". The Salvator Mundi can be exhibited, and if it goes to a museum in Saudi Arabia, and people travel there and go to see it, I mean, it would have in terms of that income value I was talking about, it would have, you know, a phenomenal one, you know, perhaps quite in excess of the $450 million that it brought at auction. "When we chose the title," Andreas Dalsgaard, a producer and a writer of The Lost Leonardo, tells BBC Culture, "the inspiration was partly that the painting is lost right now and the truth is lost, but it was also inspired by movies like the Indiana Jones movies that are full of treasures and treasure hunts.". This wall painting in the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan, allowed Leonardo to explore how the body communicates inner states of being. [5], The list is incomplete with respect to sales between private parties, as these are not always reported and, even if they are, details like the purchase price may remain secret. Pablo Picasso "Garon la pipe" (1905): $142.7 million 8. Still, it was a record-breaking event. Like we did earlier in this episode, he considered the price that it sold for in 1980. "I'm absolutely sure that six months down the road or a year, there's going to be some kind of new information, whether true or not, that's going to blow up everywhere in the news media," Dalsgaard says. TINDERA: That's right. A scene from Saviour for Sale, a second documentary about the Salvator Mundi, by French journalist Antoine Vitkine (Credit: Zadig Productions). When Leonardo was about 15, his father, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Florentine community, apprenticed him to artist Andrea del Verrocchio. Edvard Munch "The Scream" (1895): $135.2 million 9. That is still a question. So Gates sort of went out and bought the ultimate book. See a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings, Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi sold for $400 million at Christies ($450.3m, including auction house premium), One of four versions of The Scream created by Munch and the only one that is privately owned. And then there's also rarity, or how rare this exact copy or version of a book or manuscript is. A Malevich Suprematist Composition sold for $85.8 million at Christies, breaking the record for a work of Russian art. There's also something called primacy, which is being the first. Leonardo Da Vinci 1503 It was kept it at the Palace at Fontainebleau, where it remained until King Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. Yves Bouvier, a Swiss art dealer, bought the painting from the New York dealers for $83 million, reportedly on behalf of his client, a Russian oligarch named Dmitry Rybolovlev, though this is disputed by Mr Bouvier. SIMON: It's a truly horrific prospect. Last Supper (c. 1495-98) Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com. Explore the life of Italian painter, architect, engineer, and humanist Leonardo da Vinci. He needed to do that because in order to pay the inheritance taxes on a previous Earl of Leicester, who died in 1976, they needed to sell off some stuff. A New York Times story on the sale remarked that it was the highest price ever paid at auction for a manuscript. Source: pinterest.com. TINDERA: That's right. A lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci may have been found in a Scottish farmhouse, reported The Daily Mail. And then amid all of this, he buys this one-of-a-kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript at a Christie's auction for $28 million. Not everyone is a fan. The paintings transferred to the dealers include a late, Alan Bond could not pay off the painting, and. If one drawing sold for $12 million, that would mean that he could sell off this whole book clipped to pieces and earn something like $4 billion. The painting sold for $119,922,500, Picassos Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) sold at Christie's in New York for $106,482,500, Lhomme qui Marche I (1961) by Alberto Giacometti sold for 65,001,250 ($105,182,398) at Sothebys in London, Picassos Boy With a Pipe (1905) sold at Sotheby's in New York for $104,168,000, Gustav Klimts Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)went under the hammer at Christies New York and sold for $87,936,000, Francis Bacons Triptych (1976) sold for $85.9m to oligarch Roman Abramovich, A Chinese 18th century Qianlong dynasty porcelain vase sold for 53,100,000 ($85,921,461) at Bainbridges auction house in London, Dora Maar au Chat (1941) by Pablo Picasso sold for 51,560,080 ($83,429,503) at Sotheby's in London, Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet (1890) by Vincent van Gogh sold for $82,500,000 (50,985,692) at Christies in New York, Thank you all for your bidding, said Pylkknen. The Virgin and Child with St Anne was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1510. With its sleek narrative and a wide range of voices from dealers to art historians to investigative journalists, The Lost Leonardo is the better of the two films, and benefits greatly from using Modestini as its main character. Self Portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. This is the mirror where we flip it around, and now here it is in English. Six million dollars, thank you. It was first unveiled to the public at the National Gallery in London in 2011. Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and engineer who is best known for his paintings, notably the Mona Lisa (c. 150319) and the Last Supper (149598). The case led to the resignation of Monacos then justice minister, Philippe Narmino. Our 1994 story said Hammer was a master at litigation, and the aggrieved shareholders had to settle to keep building costs at $60 million. LONDON A tiny Leonardo da Vinci sketch sold on Thursday at Christie's for 8.9 million with fees, or about $12.2 million, a record price for a Leonardo drawing at auction . She even has her own mailbox. Leonardo da Vinci, (Italian: Leonardo from Vinci) (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy]died May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Luc], France), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Probably, they knew there was room before the end of the competition., They wanted to get the job done quicker, but it still took a long time.. Contemporary art, Mould told the Guardian, is where all the big money is. Then we look at the condition, and we base the condition on what's in our hands, and how you look at a book thats 150, 170 years old. Mona Lisa is not only Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting but the entire world's most famous painting. In the end, the picture was placed in Christies postwar and contemporary evening sale, wedged between lots of work by Cy Twombly, John Currin, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. They reflected the importance of the painting and that some of the bidders were conscious that the price would go higher than their bids. In 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the painters guild of Florence, but he remained in his teachers workshop for five more years, after which time he worked independently in Florence until 1481. Oprah Winfrey had bought the painting in November 2006 at Christie's for nearly $88 million. I wana write a poem about it. TINDERA: Right. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes (1607) attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. Highly esteemed, he was constantly kept busy as a painter and sculptor and as a designer of court festivals. Both sold at Sotheby's in Monaco on the same date in 1989. Paintings are listed only once, i.e. The Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci. "And it is involved therefore in the politics around culture. Nonetheless, Leonardos notebooks reveal a sharp intellect, and his contributions to art, including methods of representing space, three-dimensional objects, and the human figure, cannot be overstated. In Verrocchios renowned workshop Leonardo received a multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. The sale of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers was the first time a "modern" (in this case 1888) painting became the record holder, as opposed to the old master paintings which previously had dominated the market. TINDERA: Ultimately, in his appraisal, which Simon submitted in December 1993. Because the Louvre cannot comment on privately-owned works it has not displayed, the book can't be published, and at first, Cole says, the museum denied its existence. And how does that help us come up with a number for today? PETERSON-WITHORN: In the end, we decided to take the average of all the recommendations we got from our expert sources. So, in discussing what the Codex might be worth today, Robert Simon brought up a recent sale of a da Vinci, which was of a teeny, tiny three-inch by three-inch drawing of a bear's head, which sold in July of this year for $12 million. That's why these valuations can be so tricky. People who often would never get a chance to visit the great museums of the world. It suffers from not having Modestini or some other compelling central figure. Art Sales: Russian buyers inject confidence into Old Master market: Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17, Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Chteau Noir, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel, Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, Femme au bret et la robe quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter), List of most expensive artworks by living artists, List of most expensive non-fungible tokens, List of most expensive books and manuscripts, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture & Tourism, For Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches, Mystery Buyer of Work Attributed to Caravaggio Revealed, Caravaggio Painting Estimated at $170 M. Sold Privately Ahead of Auction in France, "El enigma detrs del Van Gogh que sali de la Argentina", "The Red Vineyard Painting at annaboch.com", "Anna Boch.com Impressionist, patron of many artists", "The Most Expensive Female Artists 2016 artnet News", "The Chinese Ink Paintings of Wang Shaofei Break the World Record", "Abu Dhabi to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi': Christie's", "A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash. In this period, he painted very little and instead focused on his scientific activity, specifically his study of anatomy. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. The bidding then resumed: $353m, $355m. Back in 1980 according to an Associated Press report, the man who was the Earl of Leicester at the time decided to sell the Codex, which had been part of the Earl's estate for more than 250 years. PETERSON-WITHORN: And in fact, that fall he had just appeared atop our Forbes 400 ranking of the richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $9.35 billion. Hammer somehow convinced the courts he was increasing shareholder value. 1. PETERSON-WITHORN: After the auction, he told the press, I'm very happy with the price. Leonardo da Vinci. There are Leonardo's drawings of the head and bust of Leda; a famous drawing was done in 1506 by Raphael; a red chalk drawing which may have been done by an assistant to Leonardo; a picture by Bugiardini which was based upon Leonardo's original cartoon (done in 1504); another copy probably by Francesco Melzi and based on Leonardo's second cartoon MASSEY: Twenty-five million, twenty-six million. Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought it that year, and 14 years later, Gates bought it at another auction. SIMON: These went into the mix. Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper. I think it's the greatest acquisition I ever made. A tempera and oil mural on plaster, "The Last Supper" was created for the refectory . (Maybe so, but in the films and other reproduced images it does have a more cloying look). The New York Times confirmed rumours that the Louvre wouldn't accede to bin Salman's demand that his painting be displayed in the same room as the Mona Lisa, giving it near-equal status. Now There's No Sign of It", "Leonardo da Vinci Painting 'Salvator Mundi' Sells for $450.3 Million", "Billionaire Griffin Pays $500 Million for Two Paintings", Welt-online: Das Rtsel vom teuersten Bild aller Zeiten, "Qatar Purchases Czanne's The Card Players for More Than $250 Million, Highest Price Ever for a Work of Art", "Lawsuit Reveals Gauguin Painting Was Not World's Most Expensive", "Gauguin Painting Is Said to Fetch Nearly $300 Million", "Russian Billionaire Seeks to Pull Sotheby's Into Art-World Fight", "The tangled history of Klimt's '$170m' Water Serpents", "The Billionaire, the Dealer, and the $186 Million Rothko", Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit by Rembrandt, an exceptionnal acquisition exhibited at the Muse du Louvre, "Buyer of record-setting Picasso painting revealed", "Picasso and Giacometti Artworks Top $120 Million Each at Christie's Sale", "Netherlands to buy Rembrandt Standard Bearer self-portrait", "The Netherlands Is Ready to Spend $198 Million to Bring a Rembrandt Self-Portrait Back Home for Good", "Chinese Taxi Driver Turned Billionaire Bought Modigliani Painting", "With $170.4 Million Sale at Auction, Modigliani Work Joins Rarefied Nine-Figure Club", A Pollock Is Sold, Possibly for a Record Price, "Auction Sales Down at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips, in a Challenging 2016", "Agnes Gund Sells a Lichtenstein to Start Criminal Justice Fund", "Steve Cohen buys Roy Lichtenstein's 'Masterpiece' for $165 million", Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait, $616 Million Poorer, Hedge Fund Owner Still Buys Art, "The Gustav Klimt Painting Oprah Reportedly Sold for $150M Has Quite a Story", "Francis Bacon triptych smashes art auction record", Buyer of $142.4 Million Bacon Triptych Identified as Elaine Wynn, "Bacon's Study of Freud Sells for $142.4 Million", "Qi Baishi Just Became the First Chinese Artist to Break the $100 Million Mark at Auction", An Art Mystery Solved: Mogul Is 'Scream' Buyer, "A $100 Million Mystery: A Russian, His Art, and His Big Losses", "Planting a Johns 'Flag' in a Private Collection", "Who Bought the Brody Picasso for $106m? He's the head of the Books, Maps and Manuscripts department at Freeman's Auction House in Philadelphia. [13][14], Among the listed top 89, only six are paintings by non-Western artists. I'll give everyone time. The world's most expensive painting to sell at auction is Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450.3 million on November 15, 2017 at Christie's.Shattering previous records and exceeding auction expectations, the sale underscored market demand for the artist's rare auction appearances, and the competition among collectors to own a work of such caliber and distinction. By 1508, Leonardo returned to Milan, working for the French rulers of the city. TINDERA: That's Gates talking for a video posted on his blog a few years ago, around the time that he exhibited the Codex Leicester in some museums in Europe. That estimate sort of got you thinking in another direction, though, right Chase? Leonardo is sometimes credited as the inventor of the tank, helicopter, parachute, and flying machine, among other vehicles and devices, but later scholarship has disputed such claims. In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the citys dukea surprising step when one realizes that the 30-year-old artist had just received his first substantial commissions from his native city of Florence: the unfinished panel painting Adoration of the Magi for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto and an altar painting for the St. Bernard Chapel in the Palazzo della Signoria, which was never begun. Or is it? Hi, Chase. The Met has since returned the coffin to Egypt. Simon's connection to the painting is that back in 2005, he and a colleague actually sort of rediscovered the painting, which was in terrible condition. At the press conference, Artnews reported, Gouzer spoke of the exceptional rarity of a work by Leonardo. Twenty-eight million dollars, then. But we need a lot more information than that before we make our estimate. At $28 million it's away from the room now and on the telephone at $28 million. For her part, Modestini has documented her work and the scientific studies of the painting, and published them online. With closing fees from the auction house, it came out to $30.8 million. But many experts on camera and elsewhere in the press think he leapt to an early conclusion. for the highest price sold. One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Last Supper was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo's patron during his first stay in that city, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. In The Lost Leonardo, Evan Beard, a Bank of America executive who deals with art as investment, talks about the common buyers' motive of using artworks as collateral for other financial manoeuvres. In cases like these, that's why we have to turn to the experts who know more about this than us. PETERSON-WITHORN: And in fact, that fall he had just appeared atop our Forbes 400 ranking of the richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $9.35 billion. Rybolovlevs spokesman, Brian Cattell, told the Wall Street Journal the family hoped the sale will finally bring to an end a very painful chapter. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. Well, as we mentioned, the most expensive painting ever sold at auction was the Salvator Mundi for $450 million. Leonardo devoted 12 yearswith interruptionsto this task. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. Christies CEO, Guillaume Cerutti, said he did not know whether the buyer would reveal themselves. Pierre-Auguste Renoir "Bal du moulin de la Galette" (1876): $154.7 million 6. SIMON: My feeling was that the Codex was quite a bit more valuable than any single drawing would be. When it sold in 1994, it was also expected to sell for $10 million, but ended up selling for three times that. Qi Baishi "Twelve Landscape Screens" (1925): $148.7 million 7. In both films, Luke Syson, the curator of the show, stands by his decision. 1 for US$44.4 million (equivalent to US$50.8million in 2021). The winning bidder would later be revealed to be Saudi Arabia's Prince. TINDERA: Simon also included another work by da Vinci: a sheet of studies including sketches of a child embracing a lamb. DARREN WINSTON: Once we've decided that the book is worth looking at for its condition, for its provenance. They bought it from an auction in Louisiana for just over $1,000. According to some sources, the painting had been sold by Argentinian art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier for $300 million,[9] but the price was not confirmed by any of the parties involved.[10]. Ludovicos fall in 1499 sealed the fate of this abortive undertaking, which was perhaps the grandest concept of a monument in the 15th century. [3] There is hardly a person on this planet that doesn't know about this artwork. The original one is now located at Muse du Louvre, Paris. But if our maximum value isn't $4 billion, then what is it? DETAILS BELOW Leonardo da Vinci (born April 15, 1452) is famous for being painter. Nineteen million on the telephone. Robert Simon told us that he thought it would not sell for less than $150 million.