Leonardo da Vinci’s recently rediscovered painting Salvator Mundi may very well eclipse the Mona Lisa in fame, though the reasons why have to do less with its art-historical significance than its market value—the painting sold for $450 million at a Christie’s auction in 2017.
A sleeper hunter is someone who looks for these mistakes, and that’s what I do.” We soon learn that he is Alexander Parish, one of the two art dealers who purchased the painting at a 2005 auction in New Orleans, where Salvator Mundi sold for $1,175 and was attributed to one of Leonardo’s followers.
He and his partner in the deal, Robert Simon, brought on Dianne Modestini, an art restorer who is also a conservation professor at NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts, to clean the painting.
Modestini’s role in the Salvator Mundi saga is controversial, and it’s clear that she agreed to be interviewed to rebuff her critics by sharing her side of the story.
Koefoed’s film interrogates her restoration process, with Leonardo expert Frank Zöllner saying, “The new parts of the painting look like Leonardo, but they are by the restorer.
Still today, no one has the full story, but Simon claims to have been found in the inventories of the deposed English kings Charles I and Charles II two now-missing works by Leonardo da Vinci, both called Salvator Mundi, that describe the works as depicting a figure holding an orb.
The show’s curator, Luke Syson, asked Parish and Simon to bring the work to London to be reviewed by a panel of da Vinci experts, including Martin Kemp and Maria Teresa Fiorio.
Enter the beleaguered Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier, who has become well known for the numerous lawsuits that have been brought against him by his onetime client, the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
Bouvier was able to negotiate it down to $83 million, but he told Rybolovlev he was only able to get it down to $127.5 million.
Once Rybolovlev learned that he was essentially swindled by Bouvier, he tried to sell the works he had bought through Bouvier at auction.
And so began a frenetic marketing campaign in which the auction house called the painting the “male Mona Lisa.” In one promotional video, actor Leonardo di Caprio is shown standing in front of the painting.
Was it merely a political strategy intended to boost Saudi Arabia’s place in the international art world, or did MBS simply have a personal connection to the work? Koefoed never offers definite conclusions, and it’s possible no one will ever know for sure what really happened.
Adding more fuel to the fire was the fact that though the Louvre had secretly analyzed the painting and produced a booklet, full of new technical information, in which the museum confirmed “that the work is by Leonardo da Vinci.” That book was never officially published by the Louvre because the loan never came through, and the museum has tried to deny its existence.
Major questions still linger: Is Salvator Mundi without a doubt a work by Leonardo da Vinci? Was the work really purchased by MBS, and why would he have paid such an astronomical price for it? Where is the painting now, and will the public ever see it again? Viewers expecting answers may find themselves disappointed by The Lost Leonardo, which doesn’t come any closer to the truth than any prior reporting on the subject.