When the Salvator Mundi appeared in a landmark exhibition devoted to Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery , London in 2011 , it was rolled out as an autograph da Vinci with an impressive list of scholarly luminaries in support of the attribution to the great master , taking the international art world by storm . In 2017 , the picture sold at Christie ’ s , New York for 450,300,000 dollars , by far the highest price ever paid for any painting . But thence ensues a knotty tale of controversies and abiding peculiarities .
Not all Italian Renaissance and Leonardo specialists support the Leonardo attribution . Contrary opinions run along two lines : a ) it ’ s mainly by one of Leonardo ’ s workshop assistants , Giovanni Boltraffio or Bernardino Luini , with some touches by the master , b ) it ’ s not by Leonardo at all but by one or the other of the artists just mentioned . Objections revolve around a lack of solid contemporary documentation such as we have with da Vinci ’ s Battle of Anghiari or The Last Supper . The Salvator Mundi is undated , so art historians speculate concerning when and where it might have been painted or whether it was commissioned and by whom ? While not at all unusual for a 500-year-old painting , sound provenance is spotty . There is a lot of “ maybe this , but then maybe that .” 1
The Salvator Mundi photographed in 1958 , called “ a free copy after Boltraffio ,” with the clumsy overpainting before cleaning .
After touring the London National Gallery exhibition , one critic wryly remarked that it “. . . looks like nothing else in the show … All I can say is that if Leonardo did paint it , then I ’ ll bet a fiver he ’ s also the joker behind the Turin Shroud .” On the face of it , the picture didn ’ t quite look like , or reach the quality of , the Leonardos we ’ re accustomed to .
For another matter , the painting that sold for an astronomical sum had been severely damaged in the past . Its walnut panel was split and deformed , with many paint losses , followed up by clumsy overpainting . No wonder that another observer would cynically offer the attribution , “ 85 percent by Dianne Modestini and the rest by Luini .”
Esteemed art conservator Dianne Dwyer Modestini had undertaken the delicate final phase of the extensive restoration the Salvator Mundi required . Highly trained , skillful conservators who have worked intimately on old master works , especially when working in tandem with scientists , know paintings in ways few others can .
The Salvator Mundi after consolidation of the damaged panel and cleaning . Jagged golden brown passages reveal the naked wood panel that had been scraped down in a previous restoration to level it .
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