In 1958 it was worth $59, today $100m. The ‘last’ Leonardo keeps on rising in value

The countdown has begun. Only a few days to go until the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. On November 15th Salvator Mundi (‘Saviour of the World’), the only Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands, is to be sold at New York’s Rockefeller Center with an estimate of $100m.

THE ‘LAST’ DA VINCI

The work is one of fewer than 20 surviving paintings sold from the Italian artist’s own hand. It fetched just $59 at Sotheby’s auction in 1958. More than half a century later, the oil on a walnut panel is worth millions of dollars.

THE GREATEST ARTISTIC REDISCOVERY OF THE 21ST CENTURY

Without question, it is the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 21st century. As Christie’s official website tell us, it belonged to the British Royal family during the 17th century. The painting disappeared from 1763 until 1900 when it was acquired by Sir Charles Robinson, who purchased the picture from Leonardo’s follower, Bernardino Luini, for the Cook Collection located in Doughty House, England.

In the dispersal of the Cook Collection, the work was set to auction in 1958 where it was marked $59. For nearly 50 years it disappeared. The painting emerged in 2005 when it was purchased from an American estate. In 2007, Dianne Dwyer Modestini, Senior Research Fellow and Conservator of the Kress Program in Paintings Conservation at the Conservation Center of the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University undertook an extensive restoration of Salvator Mundi. Dr. Modestini documented the painting’s state of preservation and her conservation process, concluding that the painting was an autograph work by Leonardo.

IT HAS MADE HEADLINES SINCE THE NATIONAL GALLERY’S EXHIBITION

In 2008 the painting was taken to The National Gallery in London, where it was studied in comparison with The Virgin of the Rocks. In 2011, it was unveiled in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan in the UK and there was a broad consensus that Leonardo painted the Salvator Mundi.

Individual opinions vary slightly in the matter of dating — most of the consulting experts place the painting at the end of Leonardo’s Milanese period in the later 1490s, contemporary with The Last Supper; while others believe it to be slightly later, painted in Florence (where the artist moved in 1500), contemporary with the Mona Lisa.

SALVATOR MUNDI AND THE MONA LISA SHOW A COMPOSITIONAL LIKENESS

“The painting technique is close to that of the Mona Lisa and the Saint John the Baptist,” Luke Syson, the Curator of Italian Paintings at The National Gallery, said. “The face was built up with multiple, extremely thin paint layers. It is another technical aspect that makes Leonardo’s authorship certain,” continued the scholar.

In a few days Salvator Mundi will find a new owner. It will be the beginning of a new chapter of its history. Ownership has expiry dates, but the masterpieces never expire.

@filippo_poletti

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