Leonardo
Da Vinci’s $450M painting of Jesus Christ set for Abu Dhabi museum missing:
report
It's the most expensive painting
ever sold -- and no one seems to know where it is.
A painting of Jesus Christ
attributed to Leonardo Da Vinci, that became the most expensive painting ever
sold when it was purchased in 2017 for $450 million by a close ally of the
Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, the "Salvator Mundi" was set to be
displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. But the painting is conspicuously absent among
the works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Monet and van Gogh that already hang on
display at the museum.
The New York Times reported the
Abu Dhabi culture department touted the news that the painting would be
displayed at the museum just a month after the auction. However, when it was
scheduled to be unveiled at the local Louvre last September, the event was
canceled without explanation.
The culture department is
refusing to answer questions and staff at the Louvre Abu Dhabi have said they
have no knowledge about the painting’s whereabouts.
Additionally, an official at the
Louvre in Paris, which licenses its name to the Abu Dhabi museum, told the
Times the museum has not been able to locate “Salvator Mundi.”
Both museums declined to provide
an official comment to the Times.
The painting was purchased on
auction in November 2017 by Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan Al Saud, who
is believed to have acted as a proxy for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. He
was named the new Saudi Culture Minister in 2018.
Believed to have been painted
around 1500, “Salvator Mundi” was one of two similar works listed in an
inventory of the collection of King Charles I of England after his execution in
1649, the Times reported, citing Oxford art historian Martin Kemp. The painting
disappeared from the historical record in the late 18th century.
But the painting later turned up
in the collection of a 19th-century British industrialist, heavily painted over
and attributed at the time to one of Da Vinci’s followers.
The claim that the painting was
actually that of the renowned Italian painter originated after a pair of
dealers spotted it at an auction in New Orleans and took it to Dianne
Modestini, a professor at New York University’s Institute of Fine Arts and a
conservator, the Times reported.
Modestini, who called the unknown
whereabouts of the painting “tragic,” stripped away overpainting, repaired
damage to the wood panel and restored details.
“To deprive the art lovers and
many others who were moved by this picture — a masterpiece of such rarity — is
deeply unfair,” she said.
Russian billionaire, Dmitry E.
Rybolovlev, bought it for $127.5 million in 2013 after it was displayed at the
National Gallery in London. He then auctioned it off via Christie’s in New York
four years later for the record $450.3 million.
Rumors in the art world swirled
that the painting had been taken to Europe after the completion of payment and
Modestini said she heard from a restoration expert that he had been asked by an
insurance company to examine the painting in Zurich last fall before further
shipping.
The examination was canceled,
however, the Times reported.
“The trail goes completely cold,”
Modestini added.