Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi- Where Are We Now and What Can We Learn?

By Andrew Biedermann

Dispute still tinges Leonardo da Vinci’s highly controversial Salvator Mundi, sold in 2017 for $450.3 million, which is now the subject of a book to be published by the Oxford University Press, what should be the painting’s definitive volume. It’s a crucial moment for a work of scholarly research to be published on this infamously enigmatic image, hopefully answering the ultimate question “is this in fact a work by Leonardo’s hand, and if so for who and when?”

David Sanderson, The Salvator Mundi, 2019, Photography, Courtesy of, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fresh-doubt-over-world-s-most-expensive-painting-73nccpbg2

Taking a look at the work’s recent history, we gain a better sense for why mystery, obsession and ultimately auction floor value is so often bestowed upon select works of art. The Salvator Mundi in question is one among twelve versions of the subject at one point thought to be by Leonardo and its lengthy list of owners reveals British royalty, illegitimate sons and daughters and in 1958 an aristocrat who sold the work for 45GBP. The work’s attribution as a work by Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, a pupil of Leonardo, endured until 2011, but had meanwhile attracted attention from scholars in search of the “original” work. After a 2005 purchase for 8,450 Euros, a consortium of dealers had the panel’s low quality overpainting delicately removed and discovered an underpainting of a thumb in a secondary position. Subsequent scholarship began to suggest that this pentimento was indication that the work in question couldn’t be a copy due to the artist’s apparent experimentation. Taking a potentially damning risk, London’s Nationally Gallery authenticated the work as a product of Leonardo da Vinci and in 2012 exhibited it publicly. Unsurprisingly, the exhibition by a notable museum multiplied the Salvator Mundi’s market value, selling privately through Sotheby’s, New York for $75 million in 2013. The sale, along with others became one that sparked a lawsuit between the work’s buyer, seller, and auction house over alleged fraud. After jetting through a range of international exhibitions the Salvator Mundi would sell again, this time at Christies in New York in 2017, becoming, as we are all by now aware, the costliest work of art to be publicly sold. The Saudi princes buying on behalf of their government subsequently failed to install their recent purchase in the newly opened Louvre Abu Dhabi and the Salvator Mundi has since fallen into in an alarming period of uncertain whereabouts.

Melissa Gronlund,The Louvre, Abu Dhabi, 2018, Photograph, Courtesy of https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/one-million-people-visited-louvre-abu-dhabi-in-its-first-year-we-look-at-what-s-in-store-for-the-next-10-years-1.789988

With the upcoming and much delayed text by Margaret Dalivalle, Martin Kemp and Robert B. Simon, many scholars remain in vehement disagreement over the painting’s authenticity. But this should come as no surprise to art world regulars, as so many works currently hanging in museums have their detractors, and this especially high profile work has suffered through the torturous markets of the information age. If we can pull a moral from this ongoing drama it is that finding art historical truth is rarely an overnight process, especially when the power of money and prestige are at play. But this is also a valuable lesson on how the art market and scholarly spheres can work with (or against) each other to achieve progress in the field. Perhaps this discovery, which must be one of the most notable art-related events in recent memory, is an occasion to review our obsession with masters and masterpieces, and remember that there exist innumerable other works of art that are worth our full attention.

Bibliography

Alison Cole, “New Book on Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi”, The Art Newspaper, Accessed 16th October 2019 https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/new-book-on-leonardo-s-salvator-mundi

Melissa Gronlund, “One Million People Visited Louvre Abu Dhabi In Its First Year”, The National, Accessed 10th November 2018 https://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/art/one-million-people-visited-louvre-abu-dhabi-in-its-first-year-we-look-at-what-s-in-store-for-the-next-10-years-1.789988

David Sanderson, “Fresh Doubt Over Salvator Mundi, World’s Most Expensive Painting”, The Times, Accessed 13th April 2019 https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fresh-doubt-over-world-s-most-expensive-painting-73nccpbg2#

Michael Daley, “How the Louvre Abu Dhabi Salvator Mundi Became a Leonardo-From-Nowhere”, Art Watch UK, Accessed 18th September 2018  http://artwatch.org.uk/how-the-louvre-abu-dhabi-salvator-mundi-became-a-leonardo-from-nowhere/

Sara Latham, “Leonardo da Vinci Painting Discovered, Stacy Bolton”, Accessed 25th April 2012 https://web.archive.org/web/20120425122841/http://www.stacybolton.com/leonardo/SM_LONG.pdf