The Price Was 10 Million Times Higher – But Was It Really Da Vinci?

By Audrey Fein

When Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan al-Saud dropped $450 million on Leonardo da Vinci’s famed Salvator Mundi, he thought he had purchased the last known available da Vinci in the world. While scholars agree the piece was indeed once a da Vinci, what he may have gotten is a work of art so heavily restored that the artist’s original intentions were lost.

According to a 2011 article in NYU Alumni Magazine, Robert Simon, a gallerist and art historian, acquired the painting in 2005. It was previously held by art connoisseur Sir Francis Cook, and when it was put up for action in 1958 at Sotheby’s, it sold for only £45, one ten-millionth of what the Saudi Prince paid for it in November 2017.

It was believed to be a common copy until 2005 because it was obscured by crude overpaint from earlier, misguided, attempts at restoration.  At one point restorers had repaired the cracked and bowed panel by using stucco fill, gluing it to another backing, and painting over the suture altogether.

Dianne Dwyer Modestini, a conservationist at the NYU Institute of Fine Arts began the restoration of Salvator Mundi in 2007, when the painting was in terrible condition. She had to make difficult choices in order to get the piece ready for auction, such as a change in the color scheme and filling in small details that were lost to time.

Christ’s blessing hand in the painting is what convinced Simon in 2005 that it was Leonardo’s creation, the NYU Alumni Magazine article notes. This gesture is always made with the right hand, in line with Christian doctrine. As Christian art evolved in the 16th and 17th centuries, the symbol of the hand took on deeper significance. With the thumb opened, the three fingers represented the Holy Trinity, and with the thumb in a closed position, closer to the palm of the hand, it represented the dual nature of Christ as both man and God.

When Modestini removed the layers of varnish and overpaint with a mixture of acetone and petroleum spirits, she found the original paint to be quite damaged. She also uncovered an interesting pentimento (remnants of an artist’s reconsidered compositional ideas) on Christ’s blessing hand: a layer of bright pink underpaint, which indicated that the thumb was originally in at a less vertical position. Though damaged and obscured from earlier attempts at restoration, both Modestini and Simon could see vestiges of da Vinci’s high quality painting.

It is now known that Leonardo changed the position on the right thumb from the Holy Trinity position to a closed position representing Christ as both man and God. Leonardo also changed other aspects of the painting. He repositioned the palm that holds the orb, and the jewel ornament attached to the garment beneath his neckband. This experimentation speaks to both his attention to detail and thoughtful reflections on religion. His probing genius was also the reason that he abandoned so many of his paintings unfinished, leaving a tiny amount of finished masterpieces that have been authenticated as his.

Leonardo painted Salvator Mundi’s blue robe in shades varying in tone from black, to pale blue, to nearly white. The robe on the Salvator Mundi before restoration is a much lighter blue than the image after Modestini’s restoration, a choice she made perhaps to enhance the visual appeal of the painting, or to make it look as it once did when it was painted around 1500.

Skeptics wonder if Modestini’s changes and updates to the painting take away the authenticity of the work. After the Salvator Mundi was auctioned at Christie’s, Thomas Campbell took to Instagram to show his frustration. Campbell is the former director and chief executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and wrote a caption below an image of the Salvator Mundi before restoration that read: “450 million dollars?! Hope the buyer understands conservation issues…” followed by “#readthesmallprint.”

In the comments below the image, Robert Simon, of the Robert Simon Fine Art gallery, wrote: “Dr. Campbell, this is an incredibly ill-informed and mean-spirited comment about one of the most respected painting conservators in the world, one who incidentally spent many years diligently working at your former institution. I personally observed the conservation process on the Salvator Mundi and can attest to the absolute honesty, modesty, and respect that Dianne Modestini brought to her work on the painting—carried out at the highest ethical standards of the profession.”

Bader bin Abdullah bin Farhan al-Saud may be aware of the five-year restoration process that went into the Salvator Mundi. He also may be aware of the other ways that the painting has been altered over time. But does it really matter? In the art world, the appropriate price tag may be in the eye of the beholder.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *