This $450 Million Dollar Portrait Might Have Actually Been Made By Da Vinci’s Assistant
The “Salvador Mundi,” a $450 million portrait, is the most expensive artwork ever to be sold. In 2018, it was displayed at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The painting was created by Leonardo da Vinci.
It depicts Jesus Christ wearing a blue smock with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding a glittering orb. Several critics have described the painting as being rather ordinary and “two-dimensional.”
A month before the art was unveiled to the public, one historian added to the criticism with his assertion that the “Salvador Mundi” was not painted by da Vinci. Instead, he believed that the artist’s studio assistant, Bernardino Luini, did the majority of the work.
Matthew Landrus, an art historian, author of several books on da Vinci, and research fellow at Oxford University, stated that da Vinci only contributed to about five to 20 percent of the final painting.
He argued that a comparison of Luini’s paintings with the “Salvador Mundi” would serve as sufficient evidence to prove his hypothesis.
He presented his case in an updated edition of a 2006 text titled Leonardo da Vinci: 500 Years On: A Portrait of the Artist, Scientist, and Innovator.
According to Landrus, the famous Renaissance artist likely sketched out the initial design and applied a few finishing touches, while the rest of the work was completed by his studio assistants.
Luini was a Milanese painter in the late 1400s whose works were inspired by da Vinci and incorporated chiaroscuro, a technique that emphasizes the contrast between light and dark.
Luini’s auction record of $654,545 is dim in comparison to his master’s. Before the sale of the “Salvador Mundi,” da Vinci’s auction record was $11,481,865.
AlexMastro – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only – pictured above is a statue of the famous painter in the center of Milan
Landrus thinks that Luini’s “Christ Among the Doctors” contains multiple aspects that closely resemble the “Salvador Mundi.”
Both feature similar drapery and gold bands, as well as face modeling and hair ringlet styles.
In the “Salvador Mundi,” Luini’s hand is most easily detected in the drapery and parts of Christ’s robe and belt.
Da Vinci’s touch can be seen mostly in the blending of Christ’s face, hands, and orb of light. The subtle changes in the shading are an example of sfumato, a classic technique employed by da Vinci.
“Leonardo has worked on the painting, [and] I think it’s important to recognize,” Landrus said. “We tend to think in black and white—one or the other when it comes to attribution, but that’s definitely not the tradition. The tradition was to get help from the studio.”
This was not the first time that “Salvador Mundi” has been credited to Luini. In 1900, the painting resurfaced after disappearing for 200 years.
A collector named Sir Charles Robinson listed the work as Luini’s. It was transferred to the Cook Collection, where it stayed until 1958. Then, it was sold at an auction for just $57.
Later, a large team of experts analyzed the painting and deemed it as the work of da Vinci. Now, experts are divided on who the true creator is, and it doesn’t look like the debate will end any time soon.
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