Robert Simon told us that he thought it would not sell for less than $150 million. MASSEY: Still with me then at five-million five hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand. So, I think we could legitimately set the floor at that price. It's now been determined that his painting is not, in fact, a da Vinci. Five are traditional Chinese paintings by Qi Baishi, Wu Bin, Wang Meng and Xu Yang. Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for $450m at auction, smashing records The Salvator Mundi can be exhibited, and if it goes to a museum in Saudi Arabia, and people travel there and go to see it, I mean, it would have in terms of that income value I was talking about, it would have, you know, a phenomenal one, you know, perhaps quite in excess of the $450 million that it brought at auction. TINDERA: I'm Michela Tindera, and this is Priceless. Like we did earlier in this episode, he considered the price that it sold for in 1980. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. TINDERA: But admittedly, Darren told us that he wasn't a da Vinci, or Codex expert and was hesitant to put a value on it out of the gate. PETERSON-WITHORN: The person who ended up winning the auction was Armand Hammer, the 82-year-old multimillionaire chairman of oil and gas giant Occidental Petroleum. Unless new documentation surfaces (unlikely after all these centuries), or a new scientific method of authentication arrives (also tricky because the work has been so damaged), the mystery may prove eternal. PETERSON-WITHORN: And in fact, that fall he had just appeared atop our Forbes 400 ranking of the richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $9.35 billion. The Burlington House Cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci. And Lewis points out that as the art market has enlarged, our world view itself has changed. Months earlier, he had appeared on the cover of Forbes, and he was a member of our very first Forbes 400 ranking. ", Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi was sold by Christie's in 2017 for a record-breaking $450 million (Credit: Photo by Ilya S Savenok/Getty Images for Christie's Auction House). And we can go into the auction record and look at previous copies of that exact same book, when it sold, where it sold, what its estimate was, what it brought. TINDERA: Right. Then we look at the condition, and we base the condition on what's in our hands, and how you look at a book thats 150, 170 years old. Leonardo devoted 12 yearswith interruptionsto this task. TINDERA: Simon shared with us his own process for how he estimated the fair market value in the appraisal he put together nearly 30 years ago. [5], The list is incomplete with respect to sales between private parties, as these are not always reported and, even if they are, details like the purchase price may remain secret. And that's the number we're using to value it. The Louvre very much wanted to include it in its grand exhibition to celebrate Leonardo's 500th anniversary in 2019. And so I think it's, you know, not so much, Let's look at it and see what would happen if we took scissors to it and divided it up. But just to say, Here we have something of such significance, partly because it has survived 500 years without, you know, being destroyed.. His was the last name on the 1988 provenance list; painting came from "a private collection in Arizona". PETERSON-WITHORN: Exactly. On June 11, 2017, Ms. Gund revealed that she intended to use the proceeds from the sale of the painting for a specific purpose: to create a fund that supports criminal justice reform and seeks to reduce mass incarceration in the United States. Then I went to those other items that were of kind of the same rarity as works of the Renaissance that had been on the market. When asked whether Salvator Mundis involvement in the Rybolovlev-Bouvier case might overshadow its sale, Christies postwar and contemporary chairman, Loc Gouzer, who secured the work with a $100m guarantee, said: We cannot comment about sellers, but it has every passport, every visa.. In cases like these, that's why we have to turn to the experts who know more about this than us. While dozens of manuscripts like the Codex have managed to survive the centuries intact, the Codex Leicester is the only da Vinci notebook that is still in private hands. TINDERA: Gates is up against a group from a bank in Milan thats sitting in the front of the Christie's salesroom. But even then, many Leonardo experts were dubious that the painting had more than a few brush strokes by him, and those doubts have ramped up ever since. But no one thought it was still worth the $30.8 million Gates paid for it. So it doesn't really look like a notebook anymore. In both films, Luke Syson, the curator of the show, stands by his decision. He was the auctioneer at the 1994 Christie's sale. But when I saw it, it didn't sit comfortably with me as an autograph Leonardo." I expected to pay much more. All the Leonardo Da Vincis in the world: rated | Leonardo da Vinci The abrupt $20m and $30m jumps in price were indeed unusual, Cerutti confirmed. Leonardo da Vinci Biography, Paintings, Family, Early Life Alison Cole, editor of The Art Newspaper, has written extensively about the painting and saw it at the National Gallery. PETERSON-WITHORN: Thanks for listening to Priceless. The two documentaries arrive at a time when films, podcasts and pop culture itself seem fascinated by art crimes, mysteries and forgeries. Soon, the painting was on its way to Christie's. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes (1607) attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. Before this, the highest absolute price paid for a painting was 8.1 million (20.4 million in 2021 currency) paid by the J. Paul Getty Museum for Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi at Christie's in London on 18 April 1985. Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as having the highest ever insurance value for a painting. And so, you've got the painting itself is you know, much more of a rare object. It then becomes a first edition of Moby Dick. The triptych had probably been reassembled by the Italian collector Francesco De Simone Niquesa, but were resold to a person in the US before 2013, This is the small version of the painting; the large version is at the. 20 of Leonardo Da Vinci Most Famous Paintings - Iconic Artworks! PETERSON-WITHORN: And the fifth was a drawing by Michelangelo called The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, which also sold to the Getty Museum in 1993, for $6.3 million. But now the Salvator Mundi has become the poster boy for the volatile mix of money, power and geopolitics that defines the art world today. She tells BBC Culture, "Since then, Dianne Modestini continued to work on it. Oprah Winfrey had bought the painting in November 2006 at Christie's for nearly $88 million. 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The sale of Vincent van Gogh's Sunflowers was the first time a "modern" (in this case 1888) painting became the record holder, as opposed to the old master paintings which previously had dominated the market. PETERSON-WITHORN: In the end, we decided to take the average of all the recommendations we got from our expert sources. However, we should probably note that it seems unlikely that as the owner of the Codex, Gates would actually do this. Kenneth Griffin acquired it in 2004 from Wynn. The buyer was anonymous, but the New York Times soon revealed him to be acting for bin Salman, a discovery that catapulted the painting into the geopolitical realm. It's not a da Vinci. - Celebrity Net Worth One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Last Supper was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo's patron during his first stay in that city, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. 7 | The Macklowe Collection | | Sotheby", "Sale Offers a Reason for Relief at Sotheby's", "Ming Dynasty Scroll Sells for Record $77 Million at Auction", The Collection of Eleanore and Daniel Saidenberg, Francis Bacon (19091992) Portrait of George Dyer Talking, Francis Bacon Work Sells for $70 Million at Christies Auction, "sGallery: A Gauguin and a van Gogh Change Hands", Andy Warhol's "Four Marlons" auction results, "Magritte 'Masterpiece' Sells for Record-Breaking $79.8 M. During Sotheby's Sale", "China auction sees Qi Baishi painting sell for $65m", "The buyer of 422.5 Million Qi Baishi painting revealed", "What Are The Top 10 Al-Thani Family Art Acquisitions? During his second period in Florence (1500-1508), he painted his most famous work, the Mona Lisa (ca. SIMON: He spent much more time as a writer, a scientist, a draftsman than he did as a painter. $450 million That price more than doubled the. Moreover, he was no doubt enticed by Duke Ludovico Sforzas brilliant court and the meaningful projects awaiting him there. The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. This episode was reported by Michela Tindera, produced by Michela Tindera and Jonathan Palmer, with additional research by Sue Radlauer. Last Supper (c. 1495-98) Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and saper vedere (knowing how to see) became the great theme of his studies. The final winning bid? So, you know, it's something I've sort of been following for, you know, a good part of my life. They arrive in the wake of Ben Lewis's high-profile 2019 book, The Last Leonardo, and dozens of articles. Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci. The saleroom erupted in cheers and applause. When Bill Gates bought the manuscript, rather than naming it the Codex Gates after himself, he decided to rename it the Codex Leicester after an earlier owner. He was listed in the register of the royal household as pictor et ingeniarius ducalis (painter and engineer of the duke). The Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci. Author of. He was known to be fastidious in personal care, keeping a beard neat and trim in later age, and to dress in colorful clothing in styles that dismissed current customs. We should note here that we did reach out to Christie's, as well as Bill Gates to ask if they had any comments on the value of the Codex today. Mona Lisa. Probably, they knew there was room before the end of the competition., They wanted to get the job done quicker, but it still took a long time.. There are all sorts of factors that come into play: condition, provenance. Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as having the highest ever insurance value for a painting. No one in the art world knows for sure where the painting is. At the press conference, Artnews reported, Gouzer spoke of the exceptional rarity of a work by Leonardo. Christie's billed the painting as an original work by Leonardo da Vinci himself. Not everyone is a fan. Privately resold for ca. TINDERA: I'm looking through a copy of whats now called the Codex Leicester, which I purchased online for about $30. CHASE PETERSON-WITHORN: Hi, Michela. $50 million through Sothebys in 1997. The Lost Leonardo is now playing in the US and opens in the UK on 10 September. This possibly-Leonardo treasure's route to fame began when it surfaced at an obscure New Orleans auction house in 2005 and was bought by two New York dealers for a measly $1,175. - The world's greatest art detective, - The men who Leonardo da Vinci loved, - The detail that unlocks the Mona Lisa. TINDERA: Robert Simon is perhaps best known in the art world for having a very close connection to a painting that is synonymous with money, power and controversy: the Salvator Mundi. For those who don't know it, it's a painting of Christ that sold at a Christie's auction in 2017 for $450 million, which is by far the most expensive work of art that's ever sold at auction. And then amid. (According to contemporary sources, Leonardo was commissioned to create three more pictures, but these works have since disappeared or were never done.) As a painter, Leonardo completed six works in the 17 years in Milan. This sale tripled the previous record, and introduced a new era in top art sales. Amid all of that the Codex went back to Christie's in 1994, where it was once again expected to bring $10 million. What was Leonardo da Vincis personality like? Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman the epitome of a true Renaissance man. That sold for $3.6 million at Sotheby's in New York in 1986. There is so much information in the public sphere that everyone can have the illusion of being an insider. See a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings, Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi sold for $400 million at Christies ($450.3m, including auction house premium), One of four versions of The Scream created by Munch and the only one that is privately owned. It suffers from not having Modestini or some other compelling central figure. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. TINDERA: Okay, so our $4 billion estimate isn't all that realistic. The subjects range from Inigo Philbrick, criminally charged with defrauding clients by selling more than 100% of shares in artworks, to a golden Egyptian coffin whose smuggled past came to light after Kim Kardashian was photographed next to it at the Metropolitan Museum's Costume Institute gala. TINDERA: Slicing up and selling off a beautiful manuscript or book is not without precedent, though, Robert explained to us. Amidst all these delightfully tangled histories, nothing rivals the Salvator Mundi. So Gates buying Leonardo da Vinci's notebook is the equivalent of a typical 66-year-old splurging ona new iPad. And seeing these works enjoyed by people all over the world. It came close. Leonardo da Vincis parents were unmarried at the time of his birth near a small village named Vinci in Tuscany. for the highest price sold. Leonardo da Vinci Net Worth 2023: Money, Salary, Bio - CelebsMoney And to put into perspective, how much less art sold for 40 years ago, the sale of the Codex was the fifth-highest price for any piece of art sold at auction ever.