It sold for $450.3 million. That is a stupid amount of money. Imagine sitting in Christie's in 2017, watching the numbers climb past the GDP of some small island nations for a piece of wood that, for decades, people thought was a cheap copy. This is the Salvator Mundi original painting, or at least, that is what the marketing department at Christie’s wants you to believe without a shadow of a doubt. But if you talk to art historians behind closed doors, the "original" part of that sentence starts to feel a lot more complicated. It’s the art world's version of a ghost story.
The painting depicts Christ as the "Savior of the World," holding a crystal orb and raising his right hand in a blessing. For a long time, it was just "Lot 84" in a regional auction in New Orleans, described as a "work after Leonardo." It sold for $1,175. Think about that. Someone bought a potential Da Vinci for the price of a mid-range sofa because it looked like a mess. It was covered in heavy overpainting, the wood panel was split, and Christ looked like he had a bad case of the mumps.
The Long Road to Proving the Salvator Mundi Original Painting is Real
You can’t just find a painting in a basement and claim it's a Leonardo. Well, you can, but nobody will give you half a billion dollars for it. The journey of the Salvator Mundi original painting from "junk" to "masterpiece" started with Robert Simon and Alexander Parish, the art dealers who bought it in 2005. They brought it to Dianne Modestini, a world-class restorer at NYU. As she began stripping away centuries of grime and amateur touch-ups, she noticed something.
The thumb.
Specifically, there was a pentimento. That’s a fancy Italian word for "the artist changed their mind." In the original layers, the thumb of the blessing hand was in a different position. Copyists don’t change their minds; they just copy what’s in front of them. Only the original creator makes mistakes and fixes them on the fly. This discovery was the first major "aha!" moment that suggested this might actually be the lost work mentioned in the inventories of King Charles I of England.
But it wasn't all smooth sailing. Leonardo worked in a workshop environment. He had students like Boltraffio and Salaì who were basically human Xerox machines. They painted exactly like him. Because of this, some experts, like Frank Zöllner or the late British art historian Brian Sewell, have remained skeptical. They argue that while Leonardo might have touched the painting or sketched the design, the actual execution could be the work of his assistants. It’s the difference between a song written and performed by Prince and a song written by Prince but performed by his backup band.
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Where is it now? The $450 Million Disappearing Act
If you want to see the Salvator Mundi original painting today, you’re out of luck. It’s gone. Not "stolen" gone, but "hidden in a billionaire’s private collection" gone. After the 2017 auction, the buyer was revealed to be Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud, acting on behalf of the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
It was supposed to be the star of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The posters were printed. The dates were set. Then, suddenly, the exhibition was cancelled.
The art world went into a frenzy. Was it a fake? Was the Saudi government embarrassed? Some reports suggested it was being kept on MBS’s superyacht, the Serene. Imagine a $450 million Renaissance painting, sensitive to every tiny change in humidity, floating around the Red Sea. It sounds like a plot for a Bond movie. More recent intel suggests it’s likely in a high-security storage facility in Switzerland or perhaps somewhere in Saudi Arabia, waiting for the completion of a new cultural district. The lack of public access only fuels the fire of the skeptics who want to examine the brushwork under a microscope without a phalanx of security guards breathing down their necks.
The Physics of the Orb
One of the most fascinating arguments against the painting being a pure Leonardo involves the glass orb in Christ’s hand. Leonardo da Vinci was a nerd. He obsessed over optics. He filled his notebooks with sketches of how light refracts through glass and water.
In the Salvator Mundi original painting, the orb doesn't distort the robes behind it. If it were a solid glass sphere, the image behind it should be inverted and magnified.
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- Leonardo knew this.
- He wrote about it extensively.
- So why didn't he paint it that way?
Some say he didn't want to distract the viewer from the religious message. Others, like Walter Isaacson in his biography of Leonardo, suggest it was a conscious choice to show Christ's miraculous power over the laws of physics. But the hardcore skeptics? They say Leonardo would never have been that scientifically inaccurate. They think it's proof a student did the work.
Authentication and the National Gallery
The "official" turning point for the painting’s status happened in 2011. The National Gallery in London included it in a massive Leonardo exhibition. This was basically the art world’s "Seal of Approval." Curators like Luke Syson invited five top Leonardo experts to view the painting in a room with the Virgin of the Rocks.
It wasn't a unanimous "yes."
It was more of a "probably." But in the high-stakes world of art dealing, "probably" is enough to turn a million-dollar painting into a hundred-million-dollar one. The provenance—the paper trail of who owned it—is still a bit Swiss-cheese-like. We know it was in Charles I’s collection. We know it disappeared for centuries. We know it reappeared in the 1900s looking like a wreck. Everything in between is a lot of educated guessing and archival digging.
Technical Details That Matter
When you look at the Salvator Mundi original painting under infrared reflectography, you see the "sfumato." This is Leonardo’s signature smoky technique, where colors blend into each other with no visible lines. It’s incredibly hard to fake. The way the light hits the curls of Christ’s hair—looking almost like swirling water—is another classic Leonardo trope. He was obsessed with the movement of water, and he often applied those patterns to hair.
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Then there's the wood itself. It’s walnut. Leonardo almost always used walnut for his Italian commissions. This might seem like a small detail, but it’s the kind of thing that separates a genuine 16th-century work from a later 17th-century copy.
The Reality of Owning a Masterpiece
Honestly, the story of the Salvator Mundi is less about art and more about power and ego. It represents the ultimate trophy. For the Saudi royals, owning the "Male Mona Lisa" is a statement of cultural dominance. It’s a way to pivot their national image toward the arts and tourism.
But for the rest of us, it’s a lesson in how history is constructed. We want it to be a Leonardo because the world is more exciting with a lost masterpiece in it. We want the "original" to exist. If it’s just a "studio of" work, the magic evaporates. The money feels even more ridiculous.
What You Should Do If You're Tracking This Story
If you are following the saga of the Salvator Mundi original painting, don't just take the auction house's word for it. The debate is the most interesting part.
- Watch the Documentary: "The Lost Leonardo" is a fantastic deep dive into the 2017 sale and the murky world of "freeports"—tax-free warehouses where the ultra-wealthy hide their art.
- Read the Opposing Views: Check out the work of Matthew Landrus, an Oxford scholar who believes the painting is largely the work of Bernardino Luini.
- Monitor the Louvre Abu Dhabi: Eventually, this painting has to resurface. The Saudi government is building several major museums; when it reappears, the world will finally get another chance to see if it lives up to the hype.
- Understand the Restoration: Look up the "before" photos of the Salvator Mundi. Seeing the raw state of the panel before Dianne Modestini worked on it will give you a much better perspective on why the attribution is so contested.
The truth about the Salvator Mundi probably lies somewhere in the middle. It is likely a painting started by Leonardo, perhaps damaged early on, and finished or heavily touched up by his students. In the Renaissance, that was still considered a "Leonardo." In 2026, we demand a clearer distinction, but history rarely gives us clean lines. Whether it's worth $450 million is a question for economists; whether it's a masterpiece is a question for your own eyes—if we ever get to see it again.