Salvator Mundi

A painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, Salvator Mundi, sold at Christie's on 15 November 2017 for $450.3 million with fees. It is the highest price ever paid for a work at auction.

Context

The painting shows Christ holding a crystal orb. After being lost to view for a long period, it was rediscovered in the 2000s, restored and exhibited at the National Gallery in London in 2011 as a work by Leonardo. It then sold at Christie's in New York on 15 November 2017.

The price of $450.3 million includes the auction house's fees, which is how record prices are normally reported. The hammer price was lower, at about $400 million. The buyer was not named at the time, and later reports linked the purchase to a Saudi royal, though the picture's current location has not been publicly clear.

The attribution has been argued over by scholars. Some experts consider it largely by Leonardo, while others see a greater part of the work as by his workshop or as heavily changed by restoration. Because of this, the sale is described here as a painting attributed to Leonardo. It remains the highest auction price for any artwork.

The sale also shows how fast top prices have grown. Before it, the auction record for a painting was well below $200 million, so the Salvator Mundi roughly doubled the previous mark. Prices of this size are also affected by competitive bidding between a few buyers, rather than a fixed measure of an artwork's worth.