[Gypsy Nirvana]

I just watched the bidding at Christie's in New York for this Leanardo Da Vinchi painting, with a bunch of members in ICMAG chat.

Someone, over the phone paid 400 Million Dollars for it.

That is the most anyone has every paid for a piece of artwork.

If any of you had those sort of funds spare, would you have tried to buy that painting?

[GOT_BUD?]

Nope. I'd have spent that money helping disabled vets or the homeless.

[Vanilla Phoenix]

Thats super crazy! Wow

[rod58]

thats just bloody shameful ! avarice at its most extreme .

[Stoner4Life]

Originally Posted by Gypsy Nirvana

I just watched the bidding at Christie's in New York for this Leanardo Da Vinchi painting, with a bunch of members in ICMAG chat.

Someone, over the phone paid 400 Million Dollars for it.

That is the most anyone has every paid for a piece of artwork.

If any of you had those sort of funds spare, would you have tried to buy that painting?

that was me bro, the telephone bidder; like to see those chooch's from Christie's try to collect now.......

[hyposomniac]

Too bad so much of davinci's work was destroyed.
He drew the first accurate model of the human heart and some cool flying machines that some people think would fly.
I would rather it was in a museum

[Max Headroom]

buying art is a popular way to launder money.

[Gypsy Nirvana]

The art critics who doubt the world's most expensive painting is REALLY a da Vinci and say it's not worth $450million


Leonardo da Vinci's painting 'Salvator Mundi' sold for $450.3 million Wednesday
The painting once sold for just $60 because experts thought it was by a student.

New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz expressed 'big doubts' over the painting
He said the painting is 'dead' with a surface that looks 'lurid and scrubbed over'
Art adviser Todd Levin called the 500-year-old painting a 'sham' and a 'mockery'.

The long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting 'Salvator Mundi', which sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million (£342million) on Wednesday might not be authentic, art critics have said.

The painting, which once sold for just $60 (£45) at auction because experts thought it was by one of his students, fetched more than four times over the Christie's pre-sale estimate of about $100million (£76million) Wednesday night.

But New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz and others have expressed 'big doubts' over the painting's authenticity.

Salvator Mundi, an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ by Leonardo da Vinci which dates to about 1500, has sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million (£342million) +5
Salvator Mundi, an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ by Leonardo da Vinci which dates to about 1500, has sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million (£342million)

New York magazine art critic Jerry Saltz (pictured) and others have expressed 'big doubts' over the painting's authenticity.

'The painting is absolutely dead,' he wrote in a column, while admitting he isn't an 'art historian or any kind of expert in old masters'.

He added: 'Its surface is inert, varnished, lurid, scrubbed over, and repainted so many times that it looks simultaneously new and old.'

Saltz said that the painting had been painted over so many times, that hardly any of the work that can be seen belonged to the original artist.

He wrote: 'Not only does it look like a dreamed-up version of a missing da Vinci, various X-ray techniques show scratches and gouges in the work, paint missing, a warping board, a beard here and gone, and other parts of the painting obviously brushed up and corrected to make this probable copy look more like an original.'

Museum snags only known painting of George Washington's...

The art critic noted that there are only 15 to 20 known and existing da Vinci paintings in the world - none of which are forward facing.

'Not a single one of them pictures a person straight on like this one,' he said. 'There is also not a single painting picturing an individual Jesus either. All of his paintings, even single portraits, depict figures in far more complex poses.'

Art adviser Todd Levin said in a now-deleted Instagram post called the 500-year-old painting a 'sham' and a 'mockery'.

The oil on wood panel painting, Salvator Mundi, depicts Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding a globe.

Commissioned by Louis XII of France in 1506, it later ended up in possession of Charles I of England and following his execution it went to Charles II and it remained in London for 400 years.

It eventually ended up in the collection of Sir Francis Cook and in 1958 it was sold by Sotheby's for just $60 after it was wrongly attributed to a student of Da Vinci called Giovanni Boltraffio.

Robert Simon Fine Art in New York, along with a consortium of art dealers, are thought to have acquired the painting at a clearance sale in 2004 for $10,000.

Simon and his partners flew in an international panel of art experts who assessed the work, which had been heavily overpainted, and gone dark and gloomy during years of neglect.

After it was cleaned up, the experts agreed it had not been done by the pupil, but the master himself, da Vinci, and went on display to the public at the National Gallery in London in 2011.

Paris-based dealer, Yves Bouvier purchased the work at a Sotheby's private sale for $77 million in 2013.

The dealer once represented Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, 50, who has accused him of cheating him out of $1 billion by misrepresenting sale prices on some 38 artworks - including the sale of the da Vinci when Rybolovlev acquired it for $127 million.

The oligarch's sale on Wednesday marks his biggest ever.

Author Philip Hook, who is Sotheby's senior international specialist in Impressionist and Modern art, said while a lot of re-painting had taken place, 'passages of it' are Da Vinci.

He said there's 'quite a lot of painting by Leonardo, but, over time, it has had to be restored, and now quite a lot of it is later restorers' paint, so it's not in an absolutely pristine state. There are passages of it by Leonardo; enough passages for it to be sold as a Leonardo'.

Experts in the art field, however, have been more diplomatic about their claims, arguing that while it has been repainted several times, the original work was likely a Da Vinci.

Restoration expert Jennifer L Mass told ArtNet that it's 'not unusual' for old pieces to have been re-painted.

'In general, when you walk through a collection, about 80 percent of what you see is the work of the artists and 20 percent is the hand of the restorers and the conservators who have worked on the paintings over the years,' she said.

She added: 'It's not unusual for paintings to have some degree of very appropriate in-painting and that is simply something that you would expect for a work of art that's several hundred years old.'

'Salvator Mundi' - Italian for 'Savior of the World' - was purchased by an unidentified buyer bidding via telephone after a protracted bidding war that stretched to nearly 20 minutes at New York's Christie's auction house on Wednesday.

It was more than twice the old auction record set by Pablo Picasso's painting 'Women of Algiers (Version O)' ('Les Femmes D'Alger) which sold for $179.4 million in May 2015, also at Christie's in New York.

The highest known sale price for any artwork had been $300 million for Willem de Kooning's painting 'Interchange,' which was sold privately in September 2015 by the David Geffen Foundation to hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin.

During Wednesday's auction, a backer of the 'Salvator Mundi' auction had guaranteed a bid of at least $100 million, the opening bid of the auction, which ran for 19 minutes. The price hit $300 million about halfway through the bidding.

The history of Salvator Mundi

Da Vinci painted the picture 500 years ago following a commission from Louis XII of France in 1506 and he finished it seven years later.

The image of Christ giving his blessing to the world was a popular subject in French and Flemish art and the half-length pose is typical of the Renaissance era.

During its long history the painting also ended up in the possession of Charles I of England and following his execution it went to Charles II and it remained in London for 400 years.

It eventually ended up in the collection of Sir Francis Cook and in 1958 it was sold by Sotheby's for just £45 and attributed to a student of Da Vinci called Giovanni Boltraffio.

Robert Simon Fine Art in New York are thought to have acquired the painting at a clearance sale in 2004.

Paris-based dealer, Yves Bouvier - purchased the work at a Sotheby's private sale for $77 million in 2013.

Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev, later acquired it from Bouvier for $127 million.

It was sold at auction in New York for a record breaking $450.3 million.

People in the auction house gallery applauded and cheered when the bidding reached $300 million and when the hammer came down on the final bid, $400 million. The record sale price of $450 million includes the buyer's premium, a fee paid by the winner to the auction house.

The 26-inch-tall Leonardo painting dates from around 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere.

Its path from Leonardo's workshop to the auction block at Christie's was not smooth. Once owned by King Charles I of England, it disappeared from view until 1900, when it resurfaced and was acquired by a British collector. At that time it was attributed to a Leonardo disciple, rather than to the master himself.

The painting was sold again in 1958 and then was acquired in 2005, badly damaged and partly painted-over, by a consortium of art dealers who paid less than $10,000 (8,445 euros). The art dealers restored the painting and documented its authenticity as a work by Leonardo.

The painting was sold Wednesday by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought it in 2013 for $127.5 million (108 million euros) in a private sale that became the subject of a continuing lawsuit.

Christie's said most scholars agree that the painting is by Leonardo, though some critics have questioned the attribution and some say the extensive restoration muddies the work's authorship.

Christie's capitalized on the public's interest in Leonardo, considered one of the greatest artists of all time, with a media campaign that labeled the painting 'The Last Da Vinci.' The work was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale.

In New York, where no museum owns a Leonardo, art lovers lined up outside Christie's Rockefeller Center headquarters on Tuesday to view 'Salvator Mundi.'

Svetla Nikolova, who is from Bulgaria but lives in New York, called the painting 'spectacular.'

'It's a once-in-a-lifetime experience,' she said. 'It should be seen. It's wonderful it's in New York. I'm so lucky to be in New York at this time.'

*from today's Daily Mail.

[CosmicGiggle]

I could look at it hanging on my wall for the rest of my life and be very happy, it's a rare thing of beauty.

..... and you can be sure (almost!) that it will never sell for less than 450 million anytime in the foreseeable future so it's a great investment also!

[kaochiu]

Yeah, to the owner it's like a 400M note and will be sold for more than bought. I'd like to hang it in my wall too, next to the Bruce Lee with Nunchakus' poster.