Breaking (smashing through) auction records, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” (oil on panel, painted circa 1500) has sold today at the Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Manhattan for $450,312,500 (hammer price plus buyer’s premium, net of any applicable fees).
The New York Times quotes art advisor Todd Levin as saying, “This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality.”
Alan Hobart, director of London’s Pyms Gallery, observes, “It’s been a brilliant marketing campaign. This is going to be the future.”
See:
Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale | Christie’s, New York, 15 November 2017
“Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history” | Christie’s, 15 November 2017
“Leonardo da Vinci Painting Sells for $450.3 Million, Shattering Auction Highs” | Robin Pogrebin and Scott Reyburn, The New York Times, 15 November 2017