Amazon Quiz: The 2021 documentary ‘The Lost Leonardo’ tells the inside story behind which painting, the most expensive one ever sold at public auction?
Options:
1. Salvator Mundi
2. The Card Players
3. Nafea Faa Ipoipo
4. Interchange
Answer: Salvator Mundi
Salvator Mundi is a picture credited in whole or in part to Leonardo da Vinci, an Italian High Renaissance artist who lived between 1499 and 1510. Long assumed to be a masked copy of a lost original, it was found, repaired, and featured in Luke Syson’s major Leonardo show at the National Gallery in London in 2011–12. Most major academics think it to be an original work by Leonardo, according to Christie’s, although this attribution has been challenged by other experts, some of whom believe he merely contributed specific aspects.
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The picture portrays Jesus in an anachronistic blue Renaissance gown, clutching a clear, non-refracting crystal ball in his left hand, signifying his position as Salvator Mundi and representing the ‘celestial sphere’ of the sky, while making the sign of the cross with his right hand. Around thirty copies and variants of the work by Leonardo’s students and successors have been discovered. The British Royal Collection has Leonardo’s preparatory chalk and pen sketches of the draperies.
Christie’s in New York sold the painting to Prince Badr bin Abdullah for US$450.3 million on November 15, 2017, setting a new record for the most expensive painting ever sold at public auction. The purchase was purportedly made on behalf of Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism, although it has subsequently been suggested that he was a stand-in bidder for his close buddy and Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
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