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The ‘Salvator Mundi’ painting has already caused a massive ruckus in the art world, and the debacle is only getting more convoluted.

This 500-year-old painting, sometimes called the male ‘Mona Lisa’, depicts Jesus in an anachronistic Renaissance blue dress and is the most expensive painting in the world.

It sold for $450 million at Christie’s auction house as a fully authenticated Leonardo da Vinci, bought in 2017 by the Saudi culture minister, Prince Badr bin Abdullah.

It’s believed that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the owner of the painting, but he’s in for some bad news.

The painting has been downgraded by curators at the Prado national museum in Madrid.

I guess all those who defended selling it and all those who fought to buy it over the years might have been wasting a massive amount of dosh.

Before we move on, note that there are actually two versions of the painting.

One is referred to as the Gulf “Salvator Mundi,” or the Cook version, as it was bought in 1900 by London-based Francis Cook:

Although there is a debate about which one is the original, this one is apparently the closest to Leonardo’s lost original, referred to as the Ganay version (1505-15):

It is the Gulf “Salvator Mundi” that was sold at Christie’s and which is now being downgraded by the Madrid museum’s catalogue of the Prado exhibition.

The exhibition is titled “Leonardo and the copy of the Mona Lisa,” and runs until January 23, 2022.

CNN has more:

Although individual specialists have questioned the status of the so-called Gulf “Salvator Mundi,” the Prado decision represents the most critical response from a leading museum since the Christie’s sale.

The Prado’s verdict is recorded in the exhibition catalog’s index, which has one list of paintings “by Leonardo,” and another for “attributed works, workshop or authorised and supervised by Leonardo.”

The Gulf painting is recorded in the second category:

The Prado curator Ana Gonzáles Mozo comments in her catalog essay that “some specialists consider that there was a now lost prototype (of Leonardo’s “Salvator Mundi”) while others think that the much debated Cook version is the original.”

However, she suggests “there is no painted prototype” by Leonardo.

The Ganay version (1505-15) is recorded as the original, sold at Sotheby’s in 1999, and sits somewhere in an anonymous private collection.

The curator of the Musée du Louvre’s landmark 2019 Leonardo retrospective, Vincent Delieuvin, wrote an opening essay of the Prado catalogue, describing the Gulf “Salvator Mundi” as having “details of surprisingly poor quality”:

Delieuvin spoke unenthusiastically about the Gulf “Salvator Mundi,” saying that although “an interesting painting, it is not the most personal composition of Leonardo.” The Louvre curator told the Courtauld seminar that it “would have been good to have had it (the Gulf painting) near the nice Ganay version, which is a high-level workshop version.”

Going forward, he concluded that he hopes the Gulf “Salvator Mundi” will be “reanalysed with greater objectivity” and featured in a permanent exhibition.

Obviously, this has put the art industry in a tizzy, especially Ben Lewis, the author of The Last Leonardo, a documentary that investigates everything from the painting’s murky beginnings to its mysterious restorations.

According to Observer, Lewis is making a minted NFT version of “Salvator Mundi” to “draw attention to the crazy excesses and injustices of the art market”.

But it won’t mean much if the painting really isn’t a da Vinci original.

[sources:observer&cnn]