Despite the pre-sale publicity, Salvator Mundi does not have the kind of history that would reassure you about its status and authenticity, especially if you were planning to spend the better part of half a billion dollars on it. The intended audience wasn’t so much public or scholarly opinion as mega-wealthy individuals looking for a prestige purchase, but throughout Christie’s was poised to counter any suggestion that Salvator Mundi was not what it purported to be. Some argue that Leonardo’s hand is evident in parts of the painting, but not the overall composition. After much ill treatment, Salvator Mundi is a sad, massively repaired object. As art historian Charles Hope wrote in 2012: It’s “a curiously unimpressive composition and it is hard to believe that Leonardo himself was responsible for anything so dull”.

Source: The Irish Times November 16, 2017 17:03 UTC