Conflicts and contradictions associated with the found painting of Leonardo da Vinci. A record $450 million was bought for a fake painting of Leonardo da Vinci's "Savior of the World" Secrets of da Vinci's paintings

“Savior of the World” (Salvator Mundi) dates back to the year 1500: it is believed that this last work of the artist - a portrait image of the Savior, holding a crystal ball with his left hand and clasping his fingers in blessing with his right - for a long time was lost.

“For many years, until 2005, the painting was considered lost,” says Christie’s press release. “The first documentary mention of it is found in the inventory of the collection of King Charles I (1600-1649). It is believed that it decorated the chambers the king's wife, Henrietta Maria of France, at the royal palace at Greenwich, and was then inherited by Charles II."

The queue for Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Salvator Mundi” before an auction in New York, November 2017

Julie Jacobson/AP

Salvator Mundi then resurfaces in 1900, when it was acquired by Charles Robinson, but as the work of Bernardino Luini, one of Leonardo da Vinci's followers. “As a result of this, Salvator Mundi joins the collection of the Cook family, located in Richmond’s Doughty House,” continues Christie’s. “In 1958, when information about the royal provenance and authorship of Leonardo was lost, the painting went under the hammer during the auction Sotheby's for just £45, after which it is forgotten again for almost half a century."

In 2013, the painting was purchased for $127.5 million by Russian billionaire Dmitry with the help of Swiss dealer Yves Buvier.

He, in turn, bought it for $80 million at a private auction at Sotheby's auction house from three art dealers. One of them, as he claims, discovered the painting at a real estate auction eight years earlier and bought it for $10 million (then experts still it was assumed that this was the work of an artist from the school of Leonardo).

Now “Salvator Mundi” has been sold to an unknown buyer for an amount 45 times higher than what the unnamed art dealer paid in the early 2000s, while the original price of the painting, which Christie’s declared, was already $100 million.

Telephone bidding with six unknown buyers lasted 20 minutes. At the end, the audience burst into applause. Auction host Jusi Paikkanen said: “This is the zenith of my career as an auctioneer. There will never be another painting that I sell for more than this one tonight.”

Salvator Mundi actually broke the previous record that an Old Master painting had ever held. Previously, the most expensive work in this category was considered to be “The Massacre of the Innocents” by Rubens, which went under the hammer in 2002 for $76.7 million at Sotheby’s.

Crime and Punishment

Even the dubious circumstances associated with this painting and its previous owner Dmitry Rybolovlev and art dealer Yves Buvier did not affect the price. In 2013, when three dealers sold a painting through Sotheby's for $80 million, the Swiss sold it to a Russian businessman for $47.5 million more just a few days later. The sellers of the painting wrote to Sotheby's asking if they knew that the painting already had another buyer? Perhaps the auction representatives even showed Rybolovlev the work in advance?

Art dealers threatened to sue if it turned out that they were victims of fraud, and they were paid less for the painting than it was actually worth.

Representatives of the auction house took action, being the first to send this appeal to the Manhattan District Court to block the lawsuit: they said that they did not know that Buvier had already agreed with the billionaire, and he was already waiting for the “Savior of the World.”

Prince Albert II of Monaco and owner of the Monaco football club Dmitry Rybolovlev after a match in Monaco, 2014

Alexey Danichev/RIA Novosti

In 2015, the Russian owner of the Monaco football club sued the art dealer Yves Buvier, accusing him of repeatedly inflating the prices of the works he sold, including a painting by Leonardo da Vinci: for 37 famous paintings The billionaire paid a total of $2 billion for the masters. Buvier denied everything, and Rybolovlev began to get rid of the work. In March, he sold works by Magritte, Rodin, Gauguin and Picasso, which he purchased from Buvier for $174 million. He received $43.7 million for them.

After Rybolovlev sued Buvier, he was detained in Monaco, after which he was released on bail of €10 million. After this, the art dealer stated that the legal system of Monaco acted in the interests of Rybolovlev. Indeed, in September 2017, the Minister of Justice of Monaco, Philippe Narmino, resigned after the French published an article that proved that the Russian billionaire was putting pressure on the countries. Buvier himself, in order to cover legal costs, had to sell part of the business associated with storage facilities for art objects.

Author, author!

Money issues aren't the only thing that's troubling about "Savior of the World." Many in the industry generally doubt that the painting is by Leonardo. New York critic Jerry Saltz published a column in Vulture ahead of the auction on November 14, in which he questioned the authenticity of “Savior of the World.”

Immediately wondering what a Leonardo painting is doing at the Post-War and Contemporary Art auction, he quotes one of the visitors: “The whole point is that 90% of this painting was created in the last 50 years.”

“The painting resembles someone’s version of a lost original, in addition, the X-rays show cracks, destruction of the paint layer, swollen wood, an erased beard and other details corrected in order to make this copy more similar to the original,” Jerry Saltz is quoted as saying by the portal “ Artguide".

Criticism also confuses the quality of the work itself.

He claims that the great artist never painted portraits of people in such simple static poses, and even frontally; that there are 15-20 paintings by Leonardo da Vinci in the world, and not one of them is a “portrait” of the Savior; that the “golden ratio” rule used in the painting, which Christie’s marketing department refers to, is too obvious for the artist, who was at the peak of his fame in 1500.

In addition, Saltz was embarrassed by the large-scale marketing campaign launched by the auction house before the auction -

a luxurious 162-page booklet with quotes from Dostoevsky, Freud and Leonardo himself, advertising videos depicting enthusiastic spectators at the pre-auction show (among the spectators were celebrities, in particular, and).

“Be sure to watch the extended clip of three company employees promoting the painting to Hong Kong clients, describing it as “the holy grail of our business,” male image The Mona Lisas of the last da Vinci, our brainchild, are a real blockbuster, comparable to the discovery of a new planet, more valuable than an oil refinery,” writes Jerry Saltz (quoted from the Art Guide portal).

In addition to the painting by Leonardo da Vinci, the work “The Last Supper” was sold at auction - it went under the hammer for $60 million. The appearance of the works together was supposed to justify the fact that the painting by the old master is being sold at the “Post-War and Contemporary Art” auction, which traditionally brings home the biggest income. This time it amounted to $785 million.

Today the auction record was broken; an unknown person paid almost half a billion dollars for Leonardo da Vinci’s painting “Savior of the World.” The drawing is outright bullshit. And against this background, the question naturally arises: why did they pay so much real money for this masterpiece, which was also possibly fake?

The main thing is that the picture is a fake . And this follows from the historical context of its “writing”.

For reasons for buying a painting for such a high price and what exactly this painting means, watch the video:

First, some working information - for those who like to count other people's money. According to The New York Times, the painting was sold by the trust fund of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who purchased it in 2013 for $127.5 million.

And now a painting by Leonardo da Vinci “Salvator Mundi” was bought at Christie’s auction in New York for $450.3 million. The name of the new owner of Leonardo da Vinci’s masterpiece has not been disclosed.

So this is what is shown in the picture? "Salvator Mundi" does not at all translate as "Savior of the World." This is, let's say, a tactlessly free translation.

The correct translation is this. “Salvator” translates as “vase, vessel, salad bowl, bowl,” etc. This is a designation of the vessel in which the World is placed. "Salvator" is an image of a religious ark. The same root word “Salvator” is “scow”, “salt shaker”, “salon”, “hall”, etc.

The word “Mundi” also does not mean World at all (you can see for yourself that the root is not the same). Here are a few words with the same root: Hebrew ~ man'ol - “castle”; Quenya mundo – “bull” (rather, two-horned); est. muna, muhk – “bump”; Catalan. munt, Spanish montón – “heap”;

lat. mundus – “pure”.

The meaning of the word “Mundi” is that it means the mythological Mount World (in the Indian tradition - Meru). It is the mountain called “The World”, and not the world itself as such. Beyond this mountain there is still huge amount lands and territories, which are also included in the general concept of “peace”.

The full translation of the phrase “Salvator Mundi” means “Ark at the Mountain.” This is the most traditional image of all the mythologies of the world, as well as religions. Most ancient image such an ark near such a mountain is the constellation of the Southern sky Puppis. She is the remnant of the very ark on which the ancient, even pre-biblical, messiah crossed from the Northern sky to the Southern.

Christianity, as a religion, is built on pagan myths and Russian fairy tales. This significant event took place - the invention of Christianity - in the 19th century. The authors are masons. The first Bible was published at the very end of the 19th century. Its second edition was at the end of the 20th century.

The basis of the plot about Jesus Christ is set out in the Russian fairy tale “By To the command of the pike" In it, the king seals the mother and child in a barrel (ark) and throws it into the sea. This ark, with a woman and a man on board, docks at the magical island of Buyan. The same plot was repeated in his fairy tale by Alexander Pushkin, “The Tale of Tsar Saltan.”

The name Saltan is used in the word "Salvator".

As I said in my video, Jesus Christ is exactly that ark, which simultaneously contains both the female part and the male part. Therefore, in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, the upper, male part of the picture is the man’s face, and the lower, female part is the woman’s chest and body.

Leonardo depicted Jesus Christ as a single ark carrying female and male sexual characteristics. From this faith, by the way, comes the European disease of society, where the brain damage of believers breeds gays and lesbians. This is a mental religious illness.

And one more detail. The name “Jesus Christ” is translated as “Woman Man”, or in the Russian tradition – “Yaga Veles”, in English – the name “GenRich”, in the total tradition “America Rus'”, in the geographical tradition – “Antarctica Arctic”, etc. All translations are equivalent: bottom - female, top - male.

In Leonardo da Vinci's painting, Jesus Christ holds a spherical model of the Earth. It is made in the form of a glass ball. Why glass? This is done to show that the depicted model of the earth is spherical, and it has not only a circle in the front plane, but also a spherical depth.

What do experts say about this? They say this masterpiece is from the royal collection. Lots of details here. Which, however, can be composed by anyone. Here are the heart-wrenching details:

« As noted by Leonardo da Vinci expert Luc Sayson, the painting may have been painted for the French royal house and came to England after Charles I married the French princess Henrietta Maria in 1625. At the same time, master Vaclav Hollar, apparently on the queen’s orders, made an engraving from the canvas.

The painting was listed in the register of the royal collection compiled a year after the execution of Charles I in 1649, then was sold at auction in 1651 and by 1666 had returned to the royal collection under Charles II. According to some reports, she was in personal account king. After 1763, traces of the painting were lost until it was acquired in 1900 in a badly damaged state for a private collection.

In 2007, the painting was restored at the Institute fine arts New York University. The following year, a group of internationally recognized experts on the work of Leonardo da Vinci studied the painting at the National Gallery in London and compared the painting style with another famous work master "Madonna of the Rocks".

According to one group of experts, Salvator Mundi dates from the end of Leonardo da Vinci's Milanese period in the 1490s, when the master painted the famous Last Supper. Another group of experts believes that the painting was painted somewhat later, in the 1500s, during Florentine period works of Leonardo da Vinci", http://tass.ru/kultura/4733122.

Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452 and died in 1519. The first work on the heliocentric system was published by Nicolaus Copernicus only in 1543, when he published his work on the heliocentric system - “On the Rotation of the Celestial Spheres”. After this, it took several more decades and centuries before the Earth, in the minds of scientists, took on a spherical shape.

Even Nicolaus Copernicus himself is depicted from the same perspective as the character in the expensive painting. But Copernicus holds in his left hand a flat model of the World, and Jesus Christ holds a spherical one. Turning the passage of time inside out.

As for the universe in general, even today it is a flat circle, and not a sphere at all.

Thus, Leonardo da Vinci could not depict something that no one knew anything about in his time. Of course, it is tempting to be deceived by genius and providence. But a fact is a fact. The spherical Earth became traditional only in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The date of painting of the painting “Salvator Mundi” should be attributed to this time, that is, “The Ark at the Mountain” - this is a canvas of the 17th - 19th centuries. And, of course, a fake.

Andrey Tyunyaev, editor-in-chief of the President newspaper

There are two aspects to this. The first concerns the painterly qualities of this canvas, and this is a question for art historians. From the point of view of a cultural scientist who defended his dissertation on the cultural aspects of the art market, I can say that the high cost is due to the fact that there are only about twenty works by Leonardo Da Vinci that have survived to this day. And most of them are in museum collections.

This painting is actually the only one that was in private hands. Because Leonardo's museum works are extremely unlikely to ever come to market. It is very difficult to transport such paintings even to temporary exhibitions. They are virtually restricted from traveling due to possible risks and difficulties associated with logistics and the amount of insurance.

How exactly did this work end up on the market and why was this possible? In 1958, it was sold at Sotheby's for 45 pounds. For some time, Da Vinci's authorship of this work was lost. It was attributed to the brushes of one of his followers or students. And only in the mid-2000s it was bought at auction and after carried out research work it was decided that the author was still Leonardo. Therefore, such a sale became possible.

But again, why did this work sell for such a sum? Because there is an auction market and a buyer was found willing to pay that kind of money. Leonardo is not only the greatest master of the Renaissance, but for many centuries in general the number one artist in the mass consciousness (until Van Gogh, Picasso and Dali slightly moved him in the 20th century), a key figure in the Western European picture of the world. I can’t say exactly who he is bought. It was sold at Christie's auction by a buyer who wished to remain anonymous, that is, the sale was made over the phone through an auction employee. What will he do with it in the future? I think it is unlikely that he will speculate on it in the near future. This is pointless, that's all equally, no museum in the world will be able to afford to purchase it, although many may hope to receive it sooner or later from the mysterious tycoon as a gift or for safekeeping.

What will he do with her in the future? I think that in the near future he is unlikely to speculate on it. He will wait for the next moment. But not a single museum in the world can afford to purchase it. And it also seems difficult to speculate on an item that has broken the price record.

With a little knowledge of the market, none of this is a mystery. Such a purchase is made to legitimize a large collection, private or museum. Some world museums can easily afford this, since some of them operate with state budgets - but in most cases they simply do not need it. I do not rule out that this could be another purchase of Dubai, but it is more likely a large private collector. Until the death of the new owner, there can be no talk of any resale, but most likely we will see the painting in a year or two at the opening of a new private museum or as part of a large addition to an existing one.

Answer

In Dubai, Muslims will not be interested in their picture with the plot of the savior of the world. The buyer is either European or American. which is most likely. It was purchased for such a sum only because of its exclusivity and as a rare find of a brush for everyone famous author, and for the plot. There are no other paintings by Leonardo depicting the Savior. More precisely, there was a version that it was he who painted the shroud for Turin, or rather initially for the house of Medici, until research was carried out on its authenticity. Most likely, he had similar attempts and are reflected in this painting. actually Leonardo is not greatest artist Renaissance, and certainly not a celestial being. He is a researcher and, in principle, in his time, more of a showman than a temple artist. It was precisely through his cynicism and hypocrisy that he acquired earthly fame, which distinguished him from other artists of his time. The painting was purchased at the peak of its price; it will be simply impossible to speculate on it for the next 50 years. but apparently the spirit of Leonardo is very close to the person, since he invested in it. Everyone sees the Savior in their own way, apparently this image suits the buyer most

Answer

Dubai itself will not be interested, but Dubai has an agreement with the Louvre to buy such things if they survive to public auction. Usually they just don’t survive. They could have missed it to make an event, why not.

He has already been nicknamed the Male Mona Lisa, and he is what Christie's declares to be "the biggest discovery of the 21st century."
A New York auction house this morning unveiled its previously secret and "most exciting acquisition to date": Salvator Mundi ("Salvator Mundi"), a previously lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci believed to be last picture artist. "Salvator Mundi is the holy grail of artistic discovery," said Alex Rotter, Christie's co-chairman.

The painting is one of a few - there are only about 15 Da Vinci paintings known to exist. (To understand the importance of this event in the art world, imagine that last time It was 1909 when Da Vinci was discovered.)

It was hidden behind Christie's opaque sliding glass doors until the announcement was made - an invitation to a press conference "You are invited to the first ever openingan unprecedented masterpiece" (“You are invited to a first-ever unveiling of AN UNPRECEDENTED MASTERPIECE”)was written under a giant question mark in a gilded frame.The painting originally hung in the collection of King Charles I and depicted the blessed Jesus Christ, dressed in azure robes and holding an orb, one arm extended upward; The Mona Lisa was painted around the same time.

Salvator Mundi first appeared in 2005 (it was sold at Sotheby's for £45 in 1958) and presented at the National Gallery in London in 2011, director National Gallery called its arrival "this event is more than the discovery of a new planet."

Immediately after today's press conference, the film will tour the world, appearing in Hong Kong, San Francisco and London, before returning to New York, where it will be exhibitedfor auction.

Of the 15 Da Vinci paintings currently known, Salvator Mundi is the only one in private hands. It will be sold at Christie's auction, and the estimated price is $100 million. “Who will buy it?” - said Guzer. “Who knows. But there would be no Louvre without the Mona Lisa, and there would probably be no Paris without the Louvre; whoever buys it will perpetuate his name, his collection, most likely, and probably his city.”

A painting by a great Renaissance master from the scandalous collection of billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev has officially become the most expensive work art in the world

The painting caused a stir already at the Christie’s press conference on October 10, 2017. Photo: GettyImages

The painting, which dates back to around 1500, was the top lot at Christie's evening auction of modern and post-war art in New York on November 15. Moreover, $450.3 million is an absolute record price for a work of art sold at public auction. The total revenue of the auction house, which also sold works by Andy Warhol, Cy Twombly, Mark Rothko and others that evening, amounted to $789 million.

The bidding began at $90 million (the day before it became known that Christie’s had a guaranteed bid from an absentee buyer who offered just under $100 million) and lasted a full 20 minutes. The main contenders were 4 telephone buyers and 1 participant in the hall. In the end, the job went to a client of Alex Rotter, head of the international department, who was haggling over the phone. contemporary art Christie's. When auctioneer Jussi Pilkkanen confirmed the sale of the painting for $400 million with the third blow of the hammer (taking into account the auction house commission, the price reached $450.3 million), the hall burst into applause.

Christie’s explained their decision to sell “Salvator Mundi” at a contemporary art auction due to the incredible significance of the work. “A painting by the most important artist of all time, depicting an iconic figure for all of humanity. The opportunity to put such a masterpiece up for auction is a huge honor and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Despite the fact that the work was painted by Leonardo approximately 500 years ago, today it influences modern art no less than in XV-XVI centuries“,” said Loic Gouzer, chairman of the New York department of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s.

Russian-born billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, whose name is now constantly heard in the news of the art world, decided to sell the last work of Leonardo da Vinci in a private collection. Firstly, he is suing his art consultant, accusing him of fraud and claiming that he overpaid twice for the collection, and secondly, he is gradually selling this collection at auctions and privately, usually receiving much less for the works than he paid. Now it’s the turn of Leonardo da Vinci’s “Savior of the World,” which went under the hammer for more than three times as much: Rybolovlev cost the painting $127.5 million, and he sold it for $450.3 million.

Both the history of this painting, which was long considered destroyed, and the scientific debate devoted to its attribution are noteworthy. There are several facts that indirectly prove that Leonardo painted Christ in the image of the Savior of the world at the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, that is, during his stay in Milan, most likely by order of the King of France, Louis XII, who at that time controlled the north of Italy. Firstly, there is a known engraving from 1650, made by Wenceslas Hollar from an original by Leonardo da Vinci (as indicated by the engraver himself). The master's sketches have also been preserved - a drawing of the head of Christ, dating back to the 1480s, from Leonardo's Codex Atlanticus (kept in the Ambrosian Library in Milan), as well as sketches of draperies (kept in the Royal Library of Windsor Castle), which compositionally coincide with those depicted on the painting put up for auction, and with those in the engraving. There are also several similar compositions by Leonardo’s students with the same plot. However, the original was considered irretrievably lost.

The painting “Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci was sold at Christie’s post-war and contemporary art auction in New York on November 15, 2017 for $450.3 million. Photo: Christie’s

“Savior of the World,” now owned by Rybolovlev, was first documented in the collection of the British monarch Charles I: in the 17th century, it was kept in the royal palace in Greenwich. The following evidence dates back to 1763, when the painting was sold by Charles Herbert Sheffield, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Buckingham. He was selling off his father's legacy after he sold Buckingham Palace to the king. Then the painting disappears from view for a long time, and its trace is rediscovered only in 1900, when “Salvator Mundi”, as a work by a follower of Leonardo Bernardino Luini, is acquired by Sir Charles Robinson, art consultant to Sir Francis Cook. This is how the work ends up in the Cook collection in Richmond. It is believed that by this time the work had already undergone inept restoration, which was necessary after the board split in two (in particular, the face of Christ was rewritten). In 1958, Sotheby's sold the collection; a heavily rewritten image of Christ went under the hammer for £45. Such a modest price is explained by the fact that the work was attributed in the auction catalog as a late copy of a painting by the artist High Renaissance Giovanni Boltraffio.

In 2005, Salvator Mundi was purchased by a group of art dealers (including New York old master specialist Robert Simon) as a Leonardesque work for just $10,000 at a small American auction. In 2013, a consortium of dealers sold the painting to Yves Bouvier for $80 million, who almost immediately resold it to Dmitry Rybolovlev for $127.5 million.

It is assumed that it was the gallery owner and art critic Robert Simon who was the first to see Leonardo’s hand in the untitled work. On his initiative, the necessary research and consultations with experts were carried out. At the same time, the work was restored. Six years later - the sensational appearance of the "Savior of the World" as authentic painting Leonardo da Vinci himself at the exhibition, and even in one of the most authoritative museums in the world, the National Gallery in London.

Curator of the exhibition “Leonardo da Vinci. Artist at the Milanese Court" (November 2011 - February 2012) Luke Syson, then keeper Italian painting before 1500 and chapter scientific department, warmly supported Leonardo's authorship. The work was included in the exhibition catalog edited by the same Sison as a work by Leonardo from a private collection. The catalog emphasizes that the most preserved part of the image is the fingers of Christ folded in a blessing gesture. Here the most characteristic techniques of the Italian genius are noticeable, in particular the numerous changes that the artist made during the process of work. In addition, other details point to Leonardo: the complex draperies of the tunic, the smallest air bubbles in the sphere of transparent quartz, as well as the way Christ’s curly hair is painted.

According to the online publication ARTnews, the then director of the National Gallery, Nicholas Penny, and Luke Syson, before deciding to include the work in the exhibition, invited four experts to look at the painting: the curator of the department of painting and graphics of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Carmen Bambach, the leading restorer of the fresco “The Last Supper” » in Milan by Pietro Marani, author of books on the history of the Renaissance, including a biography of Boltraffio, Maria Teresa Fiorio, as well as honorary professor at Oxford University Martin Kemp, who devoted more than 40 years to studying the legacy of Leonardo da Vinci. It seems that the work was accepted, but only Kemp spoke publicly in favor of attributing the “Savior of the World” to Leonardo in a 2011 interview with Artinfo. Answering the journalist’s questions, he notes the special feeling of “Leonardo’s presence” that you experience when looking at his works - you feel it in front of the Mona Lisa and in front of the Savior of the World. In addition, the professor spoke about stylistic features, characteristic of the master’s manner.

To be fair, it should be noted that the matter was not limited to art historical analysis—scrupulous technical and technological research was also carried out. The restoration and study of Salvator Mundi was carried out by Professor Dianne Modestini, who heads the Samuel Henry Kress Program in Painting Restoration at the Institute of Fine Arts of New York University. The results of her research were presented at the Leonardo da Vinci: Latest Technological Discoveries conference in February 2012 in New York. However, Modestini is actually the only one who had access to technological research data, and without them it is not entirely correct to speak about authorship.

The Italian expert on Leonardesques, Carlo Pedretti, who in 1982 curated the artist’s exhibition in his hometown Vinci then included in the exhibition another “Savior of the World”, from the collection of the Marquis de Gane, considering that painting to be the work of the master himself. In addition, the Guardian quotes a number of points from Walter Isaac's biography of Leonardo da Vinci, published in October this year. He draws attention to the image of the ball in the hand of Christ, which is incorrect from the point of view of the laws of physics. The publication also refers to the opinion of University of Leipzig professor Frank Zellner (author of a 2009 monograph on Leonardo), who in a 2013 article called Salvator Mundi a high-quality work from the workshop of Leonardo or his follower. However, this article in the Guardian has already become the subject of a lawsuit from Christie’s International.