A portrait of the world’s most recognizable person, Jesus Christ, painted by an icon whose renown doesn’t trail too far behind, Leonardo da Vinci, on Wednesday sold at auction for $450.3 million, setting a new record for artistic largesse.
Only a handful of authentic da Vinci paintings exist today, and Salvator Mundi is the only one that could still be purchased by a deep-pocketed collector. Christie’s Auction House billed the work as “The Last da Vinci,” “the holy grail of our business.” And on Wednesday a perfect storm of salesmanship, extreme scarcity, and legendary celebrity inflated the price to unprecedented levels. Salvator Mundi is now the golden standard of value by which all other paintings will be measured.
Todd Levin, an art adviser, told the New York Times, “This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality.”
Consider that 60 years ago this exact same painting sold at auction for a mere £45—adjusted for inflation, that’s about $1,200 today. The price at the time reflected the painting’s dubious history; it was badly damaged and it appeared someone had attempted to restore it. The winning bidder got such a bargain price in 1958 because it wasn’t considered an authentic da Vinci, but instead a painting by one of his pupils.
Since then, the painting’s value has been volatile—fetching a price of $10,000 in 2005 from a group of art dealers, including Robert Simon. After deep analysis, documentation and restoration Simon announced it was unequivocally a da Vinci. It was purchased in 2013 for $127.5 million by Russian billionaire Dmitry E. Rybolovlev.
