Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Salvator Mundi

Episode Date: August 11, 2021

In 2005, a small auction house in New Orleans sold a painting at auction labeled at Lot 664. The description of the item was simply, “Christ Salvator Mundi. Oil on cradled panel.” The painting was sold for $1,000. Twelve years later, the same painting was sold at Christie’s in New York for a record $450 million dollars. Learn more about Salvator Mundi, the world’s most expensive painting, and the controversy surrounding it, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2005, a small auction house in New Orleans sold a painting at auction labeled lot number 664. The description of the item was simply, Christ Salvador Monday, oil on cradled panel. The painting was sold for $1,000. Twelve years later, the same painting was sold at Christie's in New York for a record $450 million. Learn more about Salvador Monday, the world's most expensive painting and the controversy surrounding it, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed.

It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by the tourist office of Spain. If you're interested in seeing or studying great works of art, Your travels will eventually take you to Spain, which is home to some of the world's greatest artistic achievements. Madrid has Picasso's masterpiece, Gurneka, at the René Sophia Museum. In Madrid, you can also find the Garden of Love by Peter Paul Rumens at the Prado,

and the portrait of King Henry VIII by Hans Holbein at the Thaison Borsimma Museum. In Figures, you can view the portrait of Abraham Lincoln at the Salvador Dali Museum. In Bilbao, you can study the renowned Orders of the Night by Anselm Kiefer at the Guggenheim Museum. And finally, you can view some of humanity's oldest art in the cave of Altamira. You can start planning your artistic adventure in Spain by going to Spain.Info, where you can get all of the information you need to plan your trip. Once again, that's Spain.info. The story of Salvador Monday is a fascinating one that touches on so many different areas of the world of art

and exposes many of its potential problems. Salvador Monday is a painting that is estimated to be around 500 years old. It's an image of Christ wearing a blue robe. His right hand is held up, with his thumb and first two fingers extended. In his left hand, he's holding a crystal transparent glass sphere. The background is solid black. The painting is on a walnut panel. It's painted with an oil-based paint,

and the dimensions of the image are 45.4 by 65.6 centimeters, or 25.8 or 19.2 inches. Oh, and it was believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci. That last bit is what makes this painting so valuable. Da Vinci is probably the best known painter in history, and his career went well beyond painting. He was a scientist and a naturalist, and his life was fascinating. The guys over at the Renaissance Times podcast have done 17 hours on Da Vinci so far, and they aren't even close to being done. You should go and check it out.

It isn't just that Da Vinci is famous, which would be enough to make his paintings expensive. It's also the fact that there are so few of them. The number of paintings which can be attributed to Da Vinci is less than 20, and the authenticity of many of those have been debated by art experts. Very few works of Da Vinci, and that includes the sketches and drawings as well, are in private hands. When anything created by Leonardo comes up for auction, which happens very rarely, it usually sets a record. If you remember back to my episode about Liechtenstein, the Liechtenstein family sold the portrait of Generva de Benici in 1967 for $5 million, which was a record at the time.

Bill Gates purchased the Codex Lester, which was a notebook from Da Vinci in 1994, for a record $30 million. In July 2021, a tiny sketch of a barehead by Leonardo, the size of a post-it note, sold at auction for $12 million. So if the works of Da Vinci are so expensive, how in the world did one sell for $1,000 at an auction in 2005? The answer is easy. No one thought it was created by Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting that was sold in 2005 was sold by a businessman from Baton Rouge by the name of Basil Clovis Henry Sr. The painting was in really bad shape. There were very large and significant scratches on the painting. There was also evidence of painting over the original painting in a very poor attempt at restoring the image. The existence of a Da Vinci Salvador Mundi is something that had been noted at various times in history. Salvatore Mundy simply means savior of the world, and it's been a subject of European art for centuries. There are over 30 surviving versions of Salvatore Mundy that were created by Da Vinci students or Zemiris. And this isn't uncommon. There are also versions of the Mona Lisa, which were created by his students and by his followers.

The first documented occurrence of Salvatore Mundy dates back to 1638, when it was listed in the inventory of the Duke of Hamilton's estate in London. He was later executed in the English Civil War, and the painting was sold. In 1649, it was listed in the possessions of Henrietta Maria, the wife of Charles I, who was executed. The royal collection of art was then sold by the new English government. The painting was purchased by a friend of the crown and was given back to Charles II when the monarchy was restored. A bohemian artist by the name of Wenssel Sloss Haller created an engraving of the painting around 1650 and published it in a book. The engraving is shockingly similar to the painting sold in 2005. Holler noted in the book it was published in

that it was based on the original painting from Leonardo da Vinci. The painting was then passed to James II, who gave it to his mistress, who gave it to their illegitimate son, the Duke of Buckingham, who gave it to his illegitimate son, who then sold it at auction in 1763. From this point, the painting just sort of disappeared from the record.

Tracking the history of a painting's possession from creation to the present is called an artwork's provenance. Establishing the providence of a painting is extremely important in establishing value and legitimacy. For example, the Mona Lisa has a very strong providence. It was painted by Da Vinci, there are several records of other people having seen it, and it was given to the King of France after Leonardo's death, and it's been in the possession of the French state ever since. When Salvatore Monday appeared in 2005, its listing in the auction book declared it to be by an associate of Da Vinci. A consortium

of art dealers who were on the hunt for overlooked works of art took notice of the painting. They thought that this might be the lost da Vinci. Given the large potential upside, they figured they would take a gamble and bid on the painting. They were prepared to bid up to $10,000. However, they were the only bidder, and they got the painting for $1,000. They had two things they had to do. The first was to repair and restore the painting, which was severely damaged. The second was to determine if this was in fact an actual da Vinci.

As far as the restoration goes, they did a fantastic job. The restoration was overseen by Diane Dwyer Modestini of New York University. They literally took the panels apart and slowly, meticulously, repaired the scratches and cleaned up the layer of paint that was put on top. The restoration was controversial in itself. They did major work, and there were some people who thought that it should just be left alone. More work was done on the providence of the painting. It was discovered that before it wound up in the possession of Basil Hendry,

It was owned by his aunt who passed it on to him in 1987. She was a frequent visitor to Europe and would often buy art and antiques. She purchased it in London in 1958 for a whopping 45 pounds. The paintings buyer was never identified, which is why nobody knew that it was in Louisiana. The owner before that was Sir Francis Cook, who purchased it in 1900. There's still a big gap in the Providence, but on either end of that gap, it was owned by members of the English aristocracy. There's at least a consistent story, even if we don't have all the facts. Restoration work began in 2006, and by 2011, it was ready to be viewed by the art community and Leonardo experts.

The National Gallery in London declared it to be an original Leonardo, and they eventually put it on display in an exhibition of original Leonardo works. One of the world's leading Da Vinci experts, Martin Kemp, declared it to be an original Leonardo. Most experts who have studied the painting attributed to Leonardo, or at least that he worked, worked on the majority of the painting. Most of the debate has centered on if full or partial attribution should be given to Leonardo, but there are a few people who have completely denied any attribution. In 2013, the consortium that purchased the painting for $1,000, sold it to a Swiss art

dealer named Yves Bouvier for $75 million. He then turned around and sold it to a Russian oligarch named Dmitri Robilev for $127.5 million. The painting went up for auction in November 2017. by Christie's in New York. After an incredible 20-minute bidding frenzy, it was sold for an astonishing, $450,312,500, including the commission. The winner of the auction was anonymous,

but it was later revealed to be Saudi Arabian prince Bandar bin Abdullah. There are very few people in the world who can afford to drop almost half a billion dollars on a painting. Later, the Wall Street Journal reported that he was actually acting as an intermediary for the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohamedo. bin Salman. However, Christie subsequently claimed that he was actually acting on behalf of the

Abu Dhabi government, who intended to put the painting at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi. Since the painting was sold in 2017, it has not been seen in public. No one is sure where it is or what's become of it. One theory is that it's sitting in an art warehouse in Geneva. Another holds that it's on the private yacht of Muhammad bin Salman in the Red Sea. Several art historians have expressed concern about the safety of the painting, but it's highly unlikely that somebody would spend that much money on it, only to then immediately damage it. Hopefully, it'll soon be on public display

somewhere where the world would be able to appreciate it once again. Regardless if it's an actual Leonardo or not, it is a work of art with an incredible backstory. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over

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