Little known Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan al-Saud has had his name in the media of late, given that he’s the owner of the world’s most expensive painting.

The purchase of da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi made headlines for a number of reasons. First, because it sold for $450 million at an auction at Christie’s in New York in 2017.

Then, it made headlines again because people started questioning its authenticity.

More recently, the prince refused to tell anyone where the painting is housed, and also refused to loan it to the Louvre for their da Vinci exhibition.

Now it looks like the cat is out of the bag.

Here’s The Guardian:

On Monday, Artnet, an art industry news service, reported that the 500-year-old painting was being kept on Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s €500m (£440m) 134m yacht, Serene.

Artnet said “two principals involved in the transaction” had told its reporter that “the work was whisked away in the middle of the night on MBS’s plane and relocated to his yacht, the Serene”.

That’s Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, as in the guy who orchestrated the systematic murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

It’s also scary that the painting is worth almost as much as the superyacht it’s being housed on.

MarineTraffic, an app that tracks marine vessels including superyachts, says that Serene is currently at Port Said, an Egyptian city where the Suez Canal meets the Mediterranean Sea.

According to TIME, experts at the Louvre have attributed the painting to da Vinci’s workshop rather than the artist himself.

‘‘Salvator Mundi,” whose provenance has been questioned, will remain aboard MBS’s 439-foot (134-meter) Serene until the Saudis create a planned cultural hub in the Kingdom’s Al-Ula region, Artnet said.

The project was in an “exploratory phase,” a spokesman for the commission overseeing the plan said in December.

If the location of the painting was keeping you up at night, you can rest easy.

As long as Serene doesn’t go the way of superyacht Your Song, everything should be fine.

Thanks, Mike

[sources:guardian&time]