And if you liked this story,sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. Something like the first printing in North America, or the first time a new word was used in print. Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman the epitome of a true Renaissance man. PETERSON-WITHORN: Armand placed the winning bid and paid about $5.6 million for the Codex, which was less than the roughly $10 million that it was reported experts thought it might sell for. 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. Edvard Munch "The Scream" (1895): $135.2 million 9. The London art dealer Philip Mould called the idea of including Salvator Mundi in a contemporary sale inspired. DETAILS BELOW Leonardo da Vinci (born April 15, 1452) is famous for being painter. 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. The Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci. DARREN WINSTON: Once we've decided that the book is worth looking at for its condition, for its provenance. As a painter, Leonardo completed six works in the 17 years in Milan. Christies had also found placing the work, despite its celebrity, hard to fathom. Many factors seem to have converged to create this flourishing moment for true art crime. Source: pinterest.com. This episode was reported by Michela Tindera, produced by Michela Tindera and Jonathan Palmer, with additional research by Sue Radlauer. Qi Baishi "Twelve Landscape Screens" (1925): $148.7 million 7. She spent years restoring the painting, and passionately defends its authenticity in precise detail, pointing out the pentimento under Christ's thumb or a curve of his mouth that could only be Leonardo's. 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. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. ", Auction Records Fall at Phillipss Sale of Contemporary Masters, "Fernand Lger (18811955), Contraste de formes", "Warmer Response at Sotheby's 2nd Night of Auctions", "Hong Kong Billionaire Lau Sets Two Records in 24 Hours", Led by $66M Van Gogh, Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Sale Robustly Kicks Off Season, "Willem de Kooning (19041997), Untitled XXV", "Wang Meng painting auction for $62 million", "A Petite $69 Million Picasso Leads Sotheby's Solid $189 Million Impressionist Sale in London", "Property from a Distinguished Private Collection Pablo Picasso Femme Au Bret Et La Robe Quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter)", Getty breaks record with $65.1-million purchase of Manet's 'Spring', As Stocks Fall, Art Surges at a $315.8 Million Sale, Claude Monet's "Le Bassin aux nymphas" auction results, A Zao Wou-Ki painting sold for $65 million, breaking records for a work by an Asian artist, Zao Wou-Ki's "Juin-Octobre 1985" auction results, The Most Expensive Paintings ever sold list by theartwolf, Oeuvres d'art les plus dispendieuses au monde, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_most_expensive_paintings&oldid=1140779647, Private Collection, New York, United States, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17. It suffers from not having Modestini or some other compelling central figure. On November 20, 2014 at Sotheby's, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art bought her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. ARCHIVAL CLIP OF ARMAND HAMMER: Another hat is my hobby for collecting art. In November 2017 Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman paid $450 million for a da Vinci painting. But Christie's declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Gates never responded to our questions. The Netflix series This Is a Robbery delves into the 1990 theft of masterworks including a Rembrandt from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Also of note is the decorative ceiling painting (1498) he made for the Sala delle Asse in the Milan Castello Sforzesco. She even has her own mailbox. The artwork alone garners thousands of visitors from around the world to the famous gallery it is placed in - the . Amidst all these delightfully tangled histories, nothing rivals the Salvator Mundi. Because at the end of the day, it's an entertaining story.". PETERSON-WITHORN: Two were da Vinci drawings of draperies. The New York Times confirmed rumours that the Louvre wouldn't accede to bin Salman's demand that his painting be displayed in the same room as the Mona Lisa, giving it near-equal status. [6] Another example is a 2019 sale of The Seated Zouave by Vincent van Gogh. He also considered a painting done by Renaissance artist Pontormo, which was purchased by the Jay Paul Getty Museum for $35.2 million at Christie's in 1989. Paintings are listed only once, i.e. But no one thought it was still worth the $30.8 million Gates paid for it. Record private sales are believed to include $250m for a painting by Paul Czanne and $300m for a Paul Gauguin. Leonardo is sometimes credited as the inventor of the tank, helicopter, parachute, and flying machine, among other vehicles and devices, but later scholarship has disputed such claims. The Met has since returned the coffin to Egypt. What Gouzer may have meant is that buyers prepared to spend in excess of $100m on artwork exist in the modern and contemporary fields. According to a CNBC report, the median net worth of someone who is 66 years old, which is Gates' age is about $266,000. And that's the number we're using to value it. PETERSON-WITHORN: So I thought this was super fascinating that you could actually consider a work of art as something that could not only hold value and appreciate in value, but could also be a business, generating income for its owner over time. And how does that help us come up with a number for today? Biography Of Leonardo da Vinci: How Old Is Leonardo da Vinci | Net Worth | People ProfilesPeople Profiles is a channel that dives deep into the lives of some. The inflation adjustment may change as recent inflation rates are often revised. The Nahmad family bought Suprematist Composition in 2008 at Sotheby's, New York, for $60,002,500 ($76million in 2021 dollars) from the heirs of Kazimir Malevich. He also did not apply himself to higher mathematicsadvanced geometry and arithmeticuntil he was 30 years old, when he began to study it with diligent tenacity. The Return to Italy - the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre Museum in 1911. During this period Leonardo worked on a grandiose sculptural project that seems to have been the real reason he was invited to Milan: a monumental equestrian statue in bronze to be erected in honour of Francesco Sforza, the founder of the Sforza dynasty. The quality of the painting itself divides people. Now There's No Sign of It", "Leonardo da Vinci Painting 'Salvator Mundi' Sells for $450.3 Million", "Billionaire Griffin Pays $500 Million for Two Paintings", Welt-online: Das Rtsel vom teuersten Bild aller Zeiten, "Qatar Purchases Czanne's The Card Players for More Than $250 Million, Highest Price Ever for a Work of Art", "Lawsuit Reveals Gauguin Painting Was Not World's Most Expensive", "Gauguin Painting Is Said to Fetch Nearly $300 Million", "Russian Billionaire Seeks to Pull Sotheby's Into Art-World Fight", "The tangled history of Klimt's '$170m' Water Serpents", "The Billionaire, the Dealer, and the $186 Million Rothko", Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit by Rembrandt, an exceptionnal acquisition exhibited at the Muse du Louvre, "Buyer of record-setting Picasso painting revealed", "Picasso and Giacometti Artworks Top $120 Million Each at Christie's Sale", "Netherlands to buy Rembrandt Standard Bearer self-portrait", "The Netherlands Is Ready to Spend $198 Million to Bring a Rembrandt Self-Portrait Back Home for Good", "Chinese Taxi Driver Turned Billionaire Bought Modigliani Painting", "With $170.4 Million Sale at Auction, Modigliani Work Joins Rarefied Nine-Figure Club", A Pollock Is Sold, Possibly for a Record Price, "Auction Sales Down at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips, in a Challenging 2016", "Agnes Gund Sells a Lichtenstein to Start Criminal Justice Fund", "Steve Cohen buys Roy Lichtenstein's 'Masterpiece' for $165 million", Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait, $616 Million Poorer, Hedge Fund Owner Still Buys Art, "The Gustav Klimt Painting Oprah Reportedly Sold for $150M Has Quite a Story", "Francis Bacon triptych smashes art auction record", Buyer of $142.4 Million Bacon Triptych Identified as Elaine Wynn, "Bacon's Study of Freud Sells for $142.4 Million", "Qi Baishi Just Became the First Chinese Artist to Break the $100 Million Mark at Auction", An Art Mystery Solved: Mogul Is 'Scream' Buyer, "A $100 Million Mystery: A Russian, His Art, and His Big Losses", "Planting a Johns 'Flag' in a Private Collection", "Who Bought the Brody Picasso for $106m? This portrait was painted in Florence from 1474 to 1478. Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought it that year, and 14 years later, Gates bought it at another auction. On Sunday, May 29, a man disguised as an old woman in a wheelchair threw a cake at the Mona Lisa, Leonardo Da Vinci's legendary painting at Louvre, Paris. The painting disappeared from 1763 until 1900, when it was bought by Sir Charles Robinson as a work by Bernardino Luini, a follower of Leonardo. - The world's greatest art detective, - The men who Leonardo da Vinci loved, - The detail that unlocks the Mona Lisa. Renaissance artist, inventor, polymath, musician, and architect who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and drew the iconic Vitruvian Man. TINDERA: I'm looking through a copy of whats now called the Codex Leicester, which I purchased online for about $30. TINDERA: Right. The painting, which dates to around 1500, was lost to history for more than 200 years, was damaged and badly restored, and was sold and resold as a minor work, probably by a Leonardo acolyte. Everyone spoke with the caveat that we could never really know what the Codex is worth unless it actually goes up for auction. The 16th-century writer Giorgio Vasari indicated that Leonardo cared little for money but was very generous toward his friends and assistants. WINSTON: So once we've deduced that it's a first edition because it meets all of this criteria. The first question we're asking, but we're going to ask it again is, What are we actually looking at? If it's a first edition of Moby Dick, that's a great thing to have. Two of his most important worksthe Battle of Anghiari and the Leda, neither of them completedhave survived only in copies. ", https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/art-sales-russian-buyers-inject-confidence-into-old-master-marke/, Picasso piece sets record for art sold at auction, qatar may have purchased Warhol's 'Eight Elvises', "Nahmads confirm Picasso's $115m flower girl will go to Paris", "Rockefeller Picasso sells for $115 million including feesauthor=Robert Frank", "DIC Sells 'Anna's Light' Painting For Y10.3bn Gain", "Regarding extraordinary profit associated with the sale of a certain painting owned by the company and revision of its consolidated operating result forecast", "How Basquiat Became the $60 Million Man", "A Basquiat Sells for 'Mind-Blowing' $110.5 Million at Auction", A Monet Sells for $110.7 Million, an Auction High for an Impressionist Work, "Qatar bought Ford House's $100-million Cezanne", "$100M for Czanne painting? A major turning point came when the painting was controversially displayed as an authentic Leonardo at a 2011 exhibition at the National Gallery in London. 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. ARCHIVAL CLIP-STEPHEN MASSEY, CHRISTIES: The Leonardo da Vinci Codex Hammer. Son of Daniel (conductor & cellist) and Eleanore Saidenberg who were Picasso's New York dealers from 1955 to 1973. Five are traditional Chinese paintings by Qi Baishi, Wu Bin, Wang Meng and Xu Yang. [6] Though the Louvre Museum had turned down the opportunity to purchase it for 100 million,[7] the painting was estimated to sell for $110 to $170 million. During his second period in Florence (1500-1508), he painted his most famous work, the Mona Lisa (ca. In this episode, we're taking you inside the world of rare books, manuscripts, and Old Masters works to tell you about how we've estimated the value of one very special notebook, with ties to the world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction: the Salvator Mundi. For this notebook, we considered values ranging from $50 million, all the way up to $4 billion. During this first Milanese period he also made one of his most famous works, the monumental wall painting Last Supper (149598) in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie (for more analysis of this work, see below Last Supper). The paintings transferred to the dealers include a late, Alan Bond could not pay off the painting, and. According to some sources, the painting had been sold by Argentinian art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier for $300 million,[9] but the price was not confirmed by any of the parties involved.[10]. Back in 1980 according to an Associated Press report, the man who was the Earl of Leicester at the time decided to sell the Codex, which had been part of the Earl's estate for more than 250 years. Why do bad things happen to In the days leading up the the sale, Christies produced a video of celebrities viewing the work, among them Leonardo DiCaprio and Patti Smith. Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christies in New York for $450.3m, including auction house premium, shattering the world record for any work of art sold at auction. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange-rate fluctuations. I'll give everyone time. The role of most of these associates is unclear, leading to the question of Leonardos so-called apocryphal works, on which the master collaborated with his assistants. He was described in our Forbes 400 issue of the magazine that year as both a hard worker and brutally candid.. TINDERA: On sale is a one-of-a kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript known as the Codex Hammer. TINDERA: That's Gates talking for a video posted on his blog a few years ago, around the time that he exhibited the Codex Leicester in some museums in Europe. TINDERA: So how much is the Codex worth today? And so, you've got the painting itself is you know, much more of a rare object. Knowingly or not? His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon. Previewing the lot last month, Christies described the painting of Christ holding a crystal orb in his left hand and raising his right in benediction as the biggest discovery of the 21st century. 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. Freeman's was founded in 1805, and is actually America's oldest auction house. How many Leonardo da Vinci paintings are there? An exceptional case is graffiti artist David Choe, who accepted payment in shares for painting graffiti art in the headquarters of a fledgling Facebook. TINDERA: I'm Michela Tindera, and this is Priceless. People who often would never get a chance to visit the great museums of the world. The world's most expensive painting to sell at auction is Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450.3 million on November 15, 2017 at Christie's.Shattering previous records and exceeding auction expectations, the sale underscored market demand for the artist's rare auction appearances, and the competition among collectors to own a work of such caliber and distinction. He used his superb intellect, unusual powers of observation, and mastery of the art of drawing to study nature itself, a line of inquiry that allowed his dual pursuits of art and science to flourish. for the highest price sold. [13][14], Among the listed top 89, only six are paintings by non-Western artists. The Virgin and Child with St Anne was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1510. SIMON: And if you look at the illuminated manuscripts that are from, you know, missiles, and you know, these are Renaissance manuscripts, many of them have been broken apart. But it does have two anonymous sources, their faces hidden on camera, identified as high-ranking French government officials who had access to the Louvre's studies of the painting and to the French-Saudi negotiations. CLIP OF BILL GATES: So here, you're just seeing the page exactly as it looked to da Vinci. Six-million five hundred thousand, seven million. Soon, the painting was on its way to Christie's. PETERSON-WITHORN: After the auction, he told the press, I'm very happy with the price. In The Lost Leonardo, Evan Beard, a Bank of America executive who deals with art as investment, talks about the common buyers' motive of using artworks as collateral for other financial manoeuvres. MICHELA TINDERA: So its 1994, and were listening to an auction in a salesroom at Christie's in Manhattan. Billionaires just live in a different world. On the telephone in this room at $28 million. So of course, da Vinci never called it the Codex Leicester or the Codex Hammer. With closing fees from the auction house, it came out to $30.8 million. That's because da Vinci wrote it backwards, which is what he did for much of what he wrote. Explore the life of Italian painter, architect, engineer, and humanist Leonardo da Vinci. Since the painting first arrived at the Louvre in 1815, "Mona Lisa" has received plenty of love letters and flowers from admirers. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. A scene from Saviour for Sale, a second documentary about the Salvator Mundi, by French journalist Antoine Vitkine (Credit: Zadig Productions). Hammer somehow convinced the courts he was increasing shareholder value. In Verrocchios renowned workshop Leonardo received multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. It then becomes a first edition of Moby Dick. In the film, the art historian Frank Zllner, who has compiled a catalogue raisonn of Leonardo's paintings, wryly calls the Salvator Mundi "a masterpiece by Dianne Modestini," who made it "more Leonardesque than Leonardo had done." ROBERT SIMON: My name is Robert Simon. Christies sells long-lost Salvator Mundi, artwork billed as biggest discovery of the 21st century, for $400m plus auction house premium. In both films, Luke Syson, the curator of the show, stands by his decision. From about 1483 to 1486, he worked on the altar painting The Virgin of the Rocks, a project that led to 10 years of litigation between the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which commissioned it, and Leonardo; for uncertain purposes, this legal dispute led Leonardo to create another version of the work in about 1508. Oprah Winfrey had bought the painting in November 2006 at Christie's for nearly $88 million. We felt that offering this painting within the context of our postwar and contemporary evening sale is a testament to the enduring relevance of this picture.. Privately resold for ca. His was the last name on the 1988 provenance list; painting came from "a private collection in Arizona". And it was, you know, a thrilling project to be involved with. But many experts on camera and elsewhere in the press think he leapt to an early conclusion. Leonardo devoted 12 yearswith interruptionsto this task. In the end, the picture was placed in Christies postwar and contemporary evening sale, wedged between lots of work by Cy Twombly, John Currin, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Highly esteemed, he was constantly kept busy as a painter and sculptor and as a designer of court festivals. Saviour for Sale opens in the US on 17 September. But if our maximum value isn't $4 billion, then what is it? While Hammer was alive, we reported that Oxy shareholders sued three times asking to be reimbursed for what Hammer spent on art and the museum. Some of the most eye-opening commentary in both films isn't even about art. Before Rybolovlev, Salvator Mundi had been owned by a consortium of dealers including Alexander Parish, who had picked it up for $10,000 at an estate sale in the US in 2005, and had had it restored and authenticated. The current record price is approximately US$450.3 million (which includes commission), paid for Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (c.1500). She tells BBC Culture, "Since then, Dianne Modestini continued to work on it. Cole was the first to report, in March 2020, the existence of a 46-page booklet the Louvre prepared for publication but never released, which asserts that the piece is an authentic Leonardo. In 1982, he appeared on our list with an estimated net worth of $150 million. But he went even beyond that. Pierre-Auguste Renoir "Bal du moulin de la Galette" (1876): $154.7 million 6. His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. Leonardo da Vinci. As everyone who does not live in utter isolation knows, a painting of Christ known as the "Salvator Mundi" ("Savior of the World") by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci was. Christie's billed the painting as an original work by Leonardo da Vinci himself. 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.. In cases like these, that's why we have to turn to the experts who know more about this than us. To him, it was just his collection of scientific observations and illustrations and writings, mostly focused on the study of water. SIMON: It's a truly horrific prospect. 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. Top 10 most expensive works of art sold at auction - in pictures, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Moment Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sells for record-breaking $400m - video, Salvator Mundi painting by Leonardo Da Vinci before and after restoration, Leonardo's Vitruvian Man can go to the Louvre, court rules, Leonardo and Raphael art swap marks end of France-Italy spat, Short of imagination: Germaine Greer scorns Leonardo da Vincis art, Leonardo da Vinci events marred by Italy and France row, Rare Leonardo da Vinci notebook to go on show at British Library, World's most expensive painting is authentic Leonardo, insists expert, Louvre Abu Dhabi postpones display of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi, Leonardo scholar challenges attribution of $450m painting, Leonardo's earliest surviving work? PETERSON-WITHORN: Exactly. But we ended up contacting others who we thought might know the work well, too. She was universally considered to be the painter's sitter. He was also frequently consulted as a technical adviser in the fields of architecture, fortifications, and military matters, and he served as a hydraulic and mechanical engineer. In total, Christies said, 27,000 people had seen the work on a pre-sale tour with stops in Hong Kong, London and San Francisco. Whoever cut it up would be pilloried forever. Robert Simon told us that he thought it would not sell for less than $150 million. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021.[3]. But we need a lot more information than that before we make our estimate. Leonardo da Vinci was described as having a gracious but reserved personality and an elegant bearing. Our 1994 story said Hammer was a master at litigation, and the aggrieved shareholders had to settle to keep building costs at $60 million. 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. Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci. And we're going to show you how we narrowed that range to settle on one number. PETERSON-WITHORN: Yeah, when I heard about that $12 million sale, I remembered that the Codex had about 360 illustrations inside of it. Art Sales: Russian buyers inject confidence into Old Master market: Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17, Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Chteau Noir, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel, Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, Femme au bret et la robe quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter), List of most expensive artworks by living artists, List of most expensive non-fungible tokens, List of most expensive books and manuscripts, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture & Tourism, For Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches, Mystery Buyer of Work Attributed to Caravaggio Revealed, Caravaggio Painting Estimated at $170 M. Sold Privately Ahead of Auction in France, "El enigma detrs del Van Gogh que sali de la Argentina", "The Red Vineyard Painting at annaboch.com", "Anna Boch.com Impressionist, patron of many artists", "The Most Expensive Female Artists 2016 artnet News", "The Chinese Ink Paintings of Wang Shaofei Break the World Record", "Abu Dhabi to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi': Christie's", "A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash.