TThe dirt and thick overpainting of a Renaissance masterpiece can obscure the true form of what lies beneath. But when it comes to Salvator Mundithat infamous study of Jesus Christ attributed by many to Leonardo da Vinci, the many facets of intrigue that surround the painting correspond to the dark phases of its lengthy restoration.
Last week, another hidden side of the story was revealed, with new evidence coming to light about the likely fate of the missing $450 million (£360 million) artwork.
The expressionless, beatific portrait dates from 1500 and one would not initially suspect that it has so far cast a shadow on the reputation of two major European museums – the Louvre in Paris and the National Gallery in London – or led to lawsuits and disputes between art historians and leading auction houses.
Now, following revelations in a BBC documentary about Saudi Arabia, Salvator Mundi is soon to be used by a Gulf potentate as the centrepiece of a magnificent new museum whose main task, some say, will be to ‘whitewash’ the bad reputation of human rights through art.
The work’s notoriety since its stunning sale in 2017 and its immediate disappearance, along with its connection to Leonardo’s great Mona-LisaThe aim is apparently to give a new Louvre in Saudi Arabia a cultural reputation.
For Renaissance art expert Alison Cole, the Art NewspaperNew clues about the whereabouts of the painting have confirmed their suspicions. “The revelation that the Salvator Mundi is planned as the anchor exhibition of a new “very large” museum in Riyadh – in the expectation that it will have the same extraordinary appeal as the Mona-Lisa – is not surprising,” she told the observer.
“It was described as ‘the male Mona-Lisa‘ by Leonardo expert Martin Kemp and the term was enthusiastically adopted by Christie’s when the painting was auctioned in 2017. Before the sale, Francois de Poortere of Christie’s New York said: “This is the holy grail of Old Master paintings: some people call it the male Mona-Lisa. People are deeply moved by this work. You could buy it and build a whole museum around it.'”
Cole, like Leonardo researcher Margaret Dalivalle, wonders whether De Poortere already knew something that the rest of the world did not.
In the August 19 episode of the documentary The Kingdom: The most powerful prince in the world, A Princeton University professor spoke of plans for a major museum being discussed with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The prince was the secret bidder who fetched the world-class price for the painting in New York in 2017, and now Princeton academic Bernard Haykel suspects the “missing” portrait is safely stored in a vault in Geneva, ready to step into the spotlight as a key part of Prince Mohammed’s bold cultural strategy, known as Saudi Vision 2030.
Haykel claims he also learned from Saudi Culture Minister Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud that the painting has been there since it was purchased. “It is waiting for the museum to be completed and then it will hang in the museum,” he added.
A new Louvre in Riyadh would be a second “offshoot” of the Paris museum in the Gulf. The neighboring United Arab Emirates opened at the time of the Salvator MundiTherefore, some had expected that the painting would reappear there first.
If the painting is to become the “anchor” of an institution in Riyadh, this might be an appropriate nautical description: just five years ago, art writer and dealer Kenny Schachter scored a coup when he wrote that the portrait was being kept on Prince Mohammed’s 134-meter-long superyacht “Serene”.
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Speaking this weekend, Schachter was in his usual blunt form, reiterating his source’s “bulletproof” status. He claimed the prince’s yacht was a safe haven because it was air-conditioned “like everywhere he rests his royal butt.” He still believes the painting is “within reach,” arguing, “It’s impossible for a spoiled brat like him not to have the work within reach.” Schachter justifies his disdain for the prince by pointing to Saudi Arabia’s murderous treatment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
If you wish to reproduce Salvator Mundi If you want to see for yourself, you could head to a small museum in New York dedicated to the controversial artwork, which is reopening this weekend after a break-in. Some of the brand memorabilia for sale – from underpants and playing cards to a pink Barbie poster – is clearly tongue-in-cheek. Still, this image of an impassive saviour raising his hand in blessing has now reached the marketable heights of the late rapper Tupac Shakur’s face, or the silhouette of a beret-wearing Che Guevara, if not the Mona-Lisa itself.
Someone with a much deeper pocket might instead track down one of the 27 or so early copies of Leonardo’s design for the portrait, all made in his workshop. Or it might be quicker to just get one of the convincing later forgeries that have cropped up. The real 500-year-old painting, known as the “Cook version,” which is now attributed to at least Leonardo’s assistants, remains much harder to find.
It is called “Cook” because it was sold in 1900 for £120 to Sir Francis Cook, a British merchant and collector who accepted its attribution to the painter Bernardino Luini. It then caused a stir in the modern world in 2005 when it was “rediscovered” and bought by a consortium of art dealers for $1,000 before being painstakingly restored over three years by husband and wife team Mario and Dianne Modestini. A new television series starring Julianne Moore in the role of Dianne is set to tell this story soon. The drama, also produced by Moore, is largely based on the 2021 documentary The lost Leonardoin which both Cole and Schachter appeared.
Salvator Mundi became a household name when the National Gallery included it in a blockbuster exhibition dedicated to its alleged creator in 2011. The London curators had reacted swiftly after the first attribution of a painting to Leonardo in over a century caused a stir. The gallery has since claimed it had no knowledge of an impending sale, although disputes continue over the internal attribution process and in particular over the wording of the exhibition catalogue, which left little room for doubt about Leonardo’s influence.
A National Gallery spokesman recently said that decisions about exhibiting such a loaned work must be made only after a period of consideration of “the benefits of inclusion – the benefits to the public of seeing the work, the benefits to the argument and scholarship of the exhibition as a whole”. But this defence is not well received by Ben Lewis, author of The last Leonardoan inflammatory book that questions the gallery’s methods and notes that London’s prestigious recognition of the painting as a full-fledged Leonardo proved extremely useful to Christie’s at the auction.
Meanwhile, there are legal disputes between Sotheby’s, a Swiss art dealer named Yves Bouvier and a Russian billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev, a former owner of Salvator Mundi, who lost one of these ongoing cases this year. This suit was against Sotheby’s, whom he accused of fraud in connection with his purchase of the painting and other works through Bouvier in 2013. Rybolovlev is also said to have Salvator Mundi in the warehouse in Geneva until its spectacular auction in 2017.
The Louvre may have signed lucrative franchise agreements in the Gulf, but it has not been without controversy. In 2019 Salvator Mundi was to be exhibited in Paris for the first time since the sale. Prince Mohammed wanted his work to be displayed next to the Mona-Lisawas claimed in a French documentary – and despite the museum’s denials, Cole and the Art Newspaper Later I came across a suppressed booklet from the Louvre that contained a scientific study of the painting and found similarities with the sketch lines behind the enigmatic smile of the The Boy.
However, at the last minute, the painting was removed from the exhibition. It is now believed that President Macron refused to display the works side by side.
Stained with shame and doubt, perhaps Salvator Mundi could prove to be just the right “anchor object” for a museum in Riyadh to divert international attention from the country’s checkered human rights record.
And while the financial value of the portrait remains controversial, given the numerous speculations, criticisms and scholarly analyses it has provoked, it is now at least worthy of its own small library.
