The Netflix series This Is a Robbery delves into the 1990 theft of masterworks including a Rembrandt from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It would not draw more than the Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million. A Leonardo, even one as dulled as this, could prove an amusing conversation piece. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon. This list is ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value (in bold) in millions of United States dollars in 2021. Additional audio credits: AP, CBS, GatesNotes-The Blog of Bill Gates. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time. PETERSON-WITHORN: After the auction, he told the press, I'm very happy with the price. TINDERA: Now the audience in the room doesnt know this, but a representative for Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is bidding on the phone. Privately resold for ca. The painting, which dates to around 1500, was lost to history for more than 200 years, was damaged and badly restored, and was sold and resold as a minor work, probably by a Leonardo acolyte. CLIP OF BILL GATES: So here, you're just seeing the page exactly as it looked to da Vinci. In 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the painters guild of Florence, but he remained in his teachers workshop for five more years, after which time he worked independently in Florence until 1481. He also worked in the next-door workshop of artist Antonio Pollaiuolo. As everyone who does not live in utter isolation knows, a painting of Christ known as the "Salvator Mundi" ("Savior of the World") by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci was. The London art dealer Philip Mould called the idea of including Salvator Mundi in a contemporary sale inspired. He decided that the Codex's fair market value was $50 million. But, because of the imminent danger of war, the metal, ready to be poured, was used to make cannons instead, causing the project to come to a halt. The winning bidder would later be revealed to be Saudi Arabia's Prince. PETERSON-WITHORN: And in fact, that fall he had just appeared atop our Forbes 400 ranking of the richest Americans, with an estimated net worth of $9.35 billion. Kenneth Griffin acquired it in 2004 from Wynn. Portrait of Ginevra de' Benci by Leonardo da Vinci. Christies CEO, Guillaume Cerutti, said he did not know whether the buyer would reveal themselves. Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christie's in New York for $450.3m . Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman the epitome of a true Renaissance man. He was described in our Forbes 400 issue of the magazine that year as both a hard worker and brutally candid.. [6] Though the Louvre Museum had turned down the opportunity to purchase it for 100 million,[7] the painting was estimated to sell for $110 to $170 million. Five hundred years later, the Codex is in such good condition, in part because it hasn't changed hands many times. Leonardo da Vinci, (Italian: Leonardo from Vinci) (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy]died May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Luc], France), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo da Vinci paintings that is on public display in the Western Hemisphere. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange-rate fluctuations. We felt that offering this painting within the context of our postwar and contemporary evening sale is a testament to the enduring relevance of this picture.. She is a captivating, elegant presence on screen, with a whispery voice and wide eyes behind signature black or red-framed glasses. A jump to $370. If all we do is adjust the $30.8 million that Gates paid for it for inflation, that gets us to somewhere around $50 million today. Before this, the highest absolute price paid for a painting was 8.1 million (20.4 million in 2021 currency) paid by the J. Paul Getty Museum for Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi at Christie's in London on 18 April 1985. The Christie's sale itself was a highly staged drama, beginning with a marketing video that showed not the painting but the faces of observers most are ordinary people but one of them is Leonardo DiCaprio looking reverently at the image as if they were seeing Christ himself. Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. And so, the first place we looked were the auction records for the Codex from the 1980 and the 1994 sales. Months earlier, he had appeared on the cover of Forbes, and he was a member of our very first Forbes 400 ranking. PETERSON-WITHORN: Exactly. See a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings, Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi sold for $400 million at Christies ($450.3m, including auction house premium), One of four versions of The Scream created by Munch and the only one that is privately owned. A tempera and oil mural on plaster, "The Last Supper" was created for the refectory . Sowhat do we do with any of that? PETERSON-WITHORN: Two were da Vinci drawings of draperies. Moreover, he was no doubt enticed by Duke Ludovico Sforzas brilliant court and the meaningful projects awaiting him there. She was universally considered to be the painter's sitter. [3] Qi Baishi "Twelve Landscape Screens" (1925): $148.7 million 7. Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci. One of two pastel versions; another two painted versions (and lithography) exist, all created by Munch. Back in 1980 according to an Associated Press report, the man who was the Earl of Leicester at the time decided to sell the Codex, which had been part of the Earl's estate for more than 250 years. What by Leonardo can we compare it with? We asked Robert, if the Codex if it went up for sale again, could it compete with the Mundi's price? [4] In constant dollars, the highest price paid before 1987 was by the National Gallery of Art when in February 1967 they acquired Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci for around $5 million ($41million in 2021 dollars) from the Princely Family of Liechtenstein. TINDERA: That's right. According to some sources, the painting had been sold by Argentinian art collector Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier for $300 million,[9] but the price was not confirmed by any of the parties involved.[10]. 1 for US$44.4 million (equivalent to US$50.8million in 2021). TINDERA: Right. So Gates buying Leonardo da Vinci's notebook is the equivalent of a typical 66-year-old splurging ona new iPad. In Verrocchios renowned workshop Leonardo received multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. Highly esteemed, he was constantly kept busy as a painter and sculptor and as a designer of court festivals. In this period, he painted very little and instead focused on his scientific activity, specifically his study of anatomy. On the telephone in this room at $28 million. The general attitude toward art crime, he says, used to be shrugged off as "it's billionaires spending money, crooking each other", but today there is a realisation that "no, you can't loot that country's entire cultural heritage". Or is it? Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as having the highest ever insurance value for a painting. Various vandals have tried to harm da Vinci's famed masterpiece, and 1956 was a particularly bad year. PETERSON-WITHORN: And the fifth was a drawing by Michelangelo called The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, which also sold to the Getty Museum in 1993, for $6.3 million. (Swiss authorities investigated him for defrauding Rybolovlev over several artworks, but this year closed the case without charging him.) WINSTON: So once we've deduced that it's a first edition because it meets all of this criteria. What was Leonardo da Vincis personality like? SIMON: My feeling was that the Codex was quite a bit more valuable than any single drawing would be. TINDERA: So keeping all of those things in mind and knowing what he does about the Codex today. The Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auctions 10. The writings in his notebooks suggest that he may have been a vegetarian, and there is also some speculation that he may have been gay. And so, you've got the painting itself is you know, much more of a rare object. Following the French Revolution it was moved to the Louvre. An attempt to psychoanalyze the buyer of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi.' Tim Schneider , November 17, 2017 The scene at Christie's New York on November 15. TINDERA: Robert Simon is perhaps best known in the art world for having a very close connection to a painting that is synonymous with money, power and controversy: the Salvator Mundi. For those who don't know it, it's a painting of Christ that sold at a Christie's auction in 2017 for $450 million, which is by far the most expensive work of art that's ever sold at auction. DETAILS BELOW Leonardo da Vinci (born April 15, 1452) is famous for being painter. He was the auctioneer at the 1994 Christie's sale. The triptych had probably been reassembled by the Italian collector Francesco De Simone Niquesa, but were resold to a person in the US before 2013, This is the small version of the painting; the large version is at the. Renaissance artist, inventor, polymath, musician, and architect who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and drew the iconic Vitruvian Man. On November 20, 2014 at Sotheby's, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art bought her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. Since the museums rarely sell them, they are considered priceless. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021. The Virgin and Child with St Anne by Leonardo da Vinci. for the highest price sold. He also worked in the next-door workshop of artist Antonio del Pollaiuolo, a sculptor, painter, engraver, and goldsmith, who frequently worked with his brother, Piero. They reflected the importance of the painting and that some of the bidders were conscious that the price would go higher than their bids. There are all sorts of factors that come into play: condition, provenance. In The Lost Leonardo, a grinning Bouvier says his exploits are just business as usual: "you buy low and you sell high." Joining me for this is Chase Peterson-Withorn, an editor on the Forbes wealth team. So it's difficult to get much better than someone who has actually appraised an item. TINDERA: Simon shared with us his own process for how he estimated the fair market value in the appraisal he put together nearly 30 years ago. So, we reached out to Martin Kemp, who is another da Vinci scholar, and an Oxford University emeritus professor. In total, Christies said, 27,000 people had seen the work on a pre-sale tour with stops in Hong Kong, London and San Francisco. At the same time, Bouvier was negotiating and eventually succeeded to buy the painting for $112 million from Ursula Ucicky, widow of, Some fear existed, that Portrait of Dr. Gachet had been cremated with the owner in 1996, but Gachet's portrait was privately resold to. But there would, there are people in the world that would probably do that. TINDERA: I'm Michela Tindera, and this is Priceless. The Met has since returned the coffin to Egypt. Leonardo da Vinci. Christies sells long-lost Salvator Mundi, artwork billed as biggest discovery of the 21st century, for $400m plus auction house premium. Leonardo da Vinci was an artist and engineer who is best known for his paintings, notably the Mona Lisa (c. 150319) and the Last Supper (149598). Somewhere in Saudi Arabia, hidden away by order of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, is the world's most expensive painting, Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi. I'm an art dealer in New York. And my background is as an art historian. Something like the first printing in North America, or the first time a new word was used in print. In the end, the picture was placed in Christies postwar and contemporary evening sale, wedged between lots of work by Cy Twombly, John Currin, Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat. When Leonardo was about 15, his father, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Florentine community, apprenticed him to artist Andrea del Verrocchio. 9. Despite the excitement over the sale of the only Leonardo in private hands queues of people had formed around Rockefeller Center in New York to see the canvas many in the art world had wondered if the piece would find a buyer. TINDERA: In his appraisal Simon selected five comparable works all from the Renaissance era. Author of. And then amid all of this, he buys this one-of-a-kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript at a Christie's auction for $28 million. Since the painting first arrived at the Louvre in 1815, "Mona Lisa" has received plenty of love letters and flowers from admirers. Last Supper (c. 1495-98) Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com. His shares were of limited value when he was given them, but by the time of Facebook's IPO they were valued at around $200 million. Because the Louvre cannot comment on privately-owned works it has not displayed, the book can't be published, and at first, Cole says, the museum denied its existence. 7 | The Macklowe Collection | | Sotheby", "Sale Offers a Reason for Relief at Sotheby's", "Ming Dynasty Scroll Sells for Record $77 Million at Auction", The Collection of Eleanore and Daniel Saidenberg, Francis Bacon (19091992) Portrait of George Dyer Talking, Francis Bacon Work Sells for $70 Million at Christies Auction, "sGallery: A Gauguin and a van Gogh Change Hands", Andy Warhol's "Four Marlons" auction results, "Magritte 'Masterpiece' Sells for Record-Breaking $79.8 M. During Sotheby's Sale", "China auction sees Qi Baishi painting sell for $65m", "The buyer of 422.5 Million Qi Baishi painting revealed", "What Are The Top 10 Al-Thani Family Art Acquisitions? Any more? With closing fees from the auction house, it came out to $30.8 million. There is hardly a person on this planet that doesn't know about this artwork. This painting depicted St. Anne, her daughter the Virgin Mary, and the infant Jesus. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes (1607) attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. The Return to Italy - the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre Museum in 1911. At that time this was the 4th highest (unadjusted) price at auction and 10th highest price on this list. The earliest sale on the list below (Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh) is from March 1987; with a price of 24.75 million (74.1 million in 2021 currency). When he was about 15, his father, who enjoyed a high reputation in the Florence community, apprenticed him to artist Andrea del Verrocchio. (Maybe so, but in the films and other reproduced images it does have a more cloying look). Leonardo Da Vinci 1503 It was kept it at the Palace at Fontainebleau, where it remained until King Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. Record private sales are believed to include $250m for a painting by Paul Czanne and $300m for a Paul Gauguin. The image of Christ as The Saviour of the World was billed as The Last da Vinci at Christie's 2017 auction, where it sold for a record $450 million (342 million) to a proxy for bin Salman (yes, that bin Salman, whom the CIA found responsible for ordering the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi). Art Sales: Russian buyers inject confidence into Old Master market: Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17, Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Chteau Noir, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel, Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, Femme au bret et la robe quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter), List of most expensive artworks by living artists, List of most expensive non-fungible tokens, List of most expensive books and manuscripts, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture & Tourism, For Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches, Mystery Buyer of Work Attributed to Caravaggio Revealed, Caravaggio Painting Estimated at $170 M. Sold Privately Ahead of Auction in France, "El enigma detrs del Van Gogh que sali de la Argentina", "The Red Vineyard Painting at annaboch.com", "Anna Boch.com Impressionist, patron of many artists", "The Most Expensive Female Artists 2016 artnet News", "The Chinese Ink Paintings of Wang Shaofei Break the World Record", "Abu Dhabi to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi': Christie's", "A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash. It then disappeared again until it was bought at a small U.S. auction house in 2005. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They arrive in the wake of Ben Lewis's high-profile 2019 book, The Last Leonardo, and dozens of articles. SIMON: These went into the mix. TINDERA: Okay, so to recap, when it sold in 1980, it was expected to sell for $10 million, but ended up going for half that. So, they decided to hold an auction through Christie's, and it took place in London in December 1980. The most famous paintings, especially old master works created before 1803, are generally owned or held at museums, for viewing by patrons. His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. Apparently, Hammer had made a habit of buying things with Occidental Petroleum money. This portrait was painted in Florence from 1474 to 1478. He currently resides in Vinci, Italy. I cannot say if he or she will want to be public.. TINDERA: Ultimately, in his appraisal, which Simon submitted in December 1993. Edvard Munch "The Scream" (1895): $135.2 million 9. In contrast, there are currently only nine pre-1875 paintings among the listed top 89, and none created between 1635 and 1874. The collector acquired it from Bouvier for $127m, who had in turn acquired it from Sothebys in a private sale in 2013 for about $50m less. Hence, every phenomenon perceived became an object of knowledge, and saper vedere (knowing how to see) became the great theme of his studies. Antoine Vitkine's film Saviour for Sale is most notable for some explosive additions about what might have happened behind the scenes at the Louvre. If one drawing sold for $12 million, that would mean that he could sell off this whole book clipped to pieces and earn something like $4 billion. The Burlington House Cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci. In the days leading up the the sale, Christies produced a video of celebrities viewing the work, among them Leonardo DiCaprio and Patti Smith. Before the auction opened, the 500-year-old Leonardo da Vinci painting was estimated to sell for $100 million. Most art world observers thought the Salvator Mundi would be the centrepiece of a new museum or art centre in the region, but the painting has not been glimpsed in public since. Self-portrait as Archangel Gabriel unveiled, Queen's Leonardo da Vinci drawings to be shown across UK cities, Salvator Mundi by Leonardo Da Vinci before and after restoration. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Leonardos gracious but reserved personality and elegant bearing were well-received in court circles. SIMON: What it does is make you realize how important the fact that the Codex has survived intact is. The alleged vandalism attempt on Sunday left the painting's glass covered in cake frosting. Still, it was a record-breaking event. Freeman's was founded in 1805, and is actually America's oldest auction house. SIMON: And if you look at the illuminated manuscripts that are from, you know, missiles, and you know, these are Renaissance manuscripts, many of them have been broken apart. TINDERA: On sale is a one-of-a kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript known as the Codex Hammer. While Hammer was alive, we reported that Oxy shareholders sued three times asking to be reimbursed for what Hammer spent on art and the museum. Son of Daniel (conductor & cellist) and Eleanore Saidenberg who were Picasso's New York dealers from 1955 to 1973. Antique Heliogravure on wove paper after t.. 620: 1893 Leonardo da Vinci Bust of an Old Man in Roman Costume print signed Est: $ 500 - $ 700 View sold prices Feb. 05, 2023 KCM Galleries Cape Coral, FL, US Scholars have been unable to agree in their attributions of these works. MICHELA TINDERA: So its 1994, and were listening to an auction in a salesroom at Christie's in Manhattan. Oprah Winfrey had bought the painting in November 2006 at Christie's for nearly $88 million. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to ourFacebookpage or message us onTwitter. She tells BBC Culture, "Since then, Dianne Modestini continued to work on it. Five-point-five million dollars to start. We should note here that we did reach out to Christie's, as well as Bill Gates to ask if they had any comments on the value of the Codex today. So next, we decided to try some sources who not only know Old Masters works, but they know da Vinci really well. But Christie's declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Gates never responded to our questions. At an auction held at Christie's New York in 2016 during a contemporary art event, Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci turned into the most expensive painting ever sold, selling for $450 million at the end of a nineteen-minute bidding war. The painting was sold in November 2017,[1][2] through the auction house Christie's in New York City. Saviour for Sale opens in the US on 17 September. What is Leonardo da Vinci best known for? Christie's billed the painting as an original work by Leonardo da Vinci himself. Re-sold for 12m to Stavros Niarchos in 1993. Unless new documentation surfaces (unlikely after all these centuries), or a new scientific method of authentication arrives (also tricky because the work has been so damaged), the mystery may prove eternal. MASSEY: Still with me then at five-million five hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand. The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. Contemporary art, Mould told the Guardian, is where all the big money is. Some of the most eye-opening commentary in both films isn't even about art. The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci. And then amid. $50 million through Sothebys in 1997. But one tries to lay out in a rational way, why one has a higher value than the other, why one has a lesser market appeal, and then try from that to come up with a single value. Among Leonardos pupils at this time were Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, Ambrogio de Predis, Bernardino de Conti, Francesco Napoletano, Andrea Solari, Marco dOggiono, and Salai. That's why these valuations can be so tricky. This is the mirror where we flip it around, and now here it is in English. Rybolovlev resold Gauguin's Otahi before 2017 for less than $50 million. That these tales can work in a podcast, where no one can even see the work being described, suggests how much the allure of today's art-crime stories is in the skulduggery and mystery, not aesthetics. The disciples, devastated by Christ stating one of them would cause his death, convey their feelings dramatically through their body language. I wana write a poem about it. PETERSON-WITHORN: Yeah, when I heard about that $12 million sale, I remembered that the Codex had about 360 illustrations inside of it. The painting was consigned to Christies by Dmitry Rybolovlev, 50, a Russian fertiliser oligarch who has been at the center of an art-world scandal involving claims that a Paris-based dealer, Yves Bouvier, cheated the collector out of as much as $1bn on sales of 38 artworks, including the Leonardo. We know quite a bit about Leonardo's life from a mini-biography by Giorgio Vasari, a Leonardo fanboy and the world's first art historian.Born a nobody, Leonardo was a charismatic and complicated man self confident and not, driven and not, distracted and not. That sold for $3.6 million at Sotheby's in New York in 1986.