Is this 'male Mona Lisa' worth US$450m?
Salvator Mundi was purchased at an estate sale in 2005 for less than US$10,000, and initially considered a copy of a lost Leonardo.
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YOU can't put a price on beauty; you can put a price on a name. When the National Gallery in London exhibited a painting of Christ in 2011 as a heretofore lost work by Leonardo da Vinci, the surprise in art historical circles was exceeded only by the salivating of dealers and auctioneers.
The painting, Salvator Mundi, is the only Leonardo in private hands, and was brought to market by the family trust of Dmitry Rybolovlev, the Russian billionaire entangled in an epic multinational lawsuit with his former dealer, Yves Bouvier.
On Wednesday night, at Christie's postwar and contemporary sale (in which it was incongruously included to reach bidders beyond Renaissance connoisseurs), the Leonardo sold for a shocking US$450.3 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art at auction. Worth it? Well, what are you buying: the painting or the brand?
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