How Leonardo Da Vinci’s last work was discovered and sold for $450.3 million

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This is probably the biggest irony of life: that the portrait of Jesus Christ by Leonardo Da Vinci who, from all available records, did not believe in God or Christianity, would become the most expensive artwork to be auctioned today in the world. Last week, Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the world) – a painted bust of Jesus Christ, was sold for $450.3 million at Christie’s auction house in New York.

“During his life,” wrote Paul Strathern in The artist, the philosopher, and the warrior, quoting Giorgio Vasari, “Leonardo did not believe in the doctrines of Christian faith until he may or may not have had to learn them on his deathbed.” Vasari also described how Leonardo “formed in his mind a doctrine so heretical that he depended no more on any religion, perhaps placing scientific knowledge higher than Christian faith.”

Dating back to about 1500, the rare painting, Salvator Mundi, is one of the less than 20 authenticated works by Leonardo in existence.

According to the Washington Post, the painting which was announced by the auction house as “The Last da Vinci,” spent centuries in obscurity until it was rediscovered in 2005 and underwent a six-year restoration and verification process.  The small piece depicts Jesus raising his right hand in blessing and holding a crystal orb, meant to represent the world, in his left.

Over time, the painting has attracted scrutiny and a lawsuit.

Salvator Mundi had inspired a number of imitations. Over the years, art historians have identified about 20 of these copies, but the original seemed to have been lost to history.

At one point, it was part of the royal collection of King Charles I of England. It disappeared in 1763 for nearly a century and a half. In 1900, Sir Charles Robinson purchased the painting for the Cook Collection in London. But by then, it was no longer credited to da Vinci but to his follower Bernardino Luini.

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