Is the world's most expensive painting a FAKE? Louvre snubs 'Leonardo da Vinci' painting 15 months after a Saudi prince spent £342million

The Salvator Mundi, an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ which dates to about 1500

The Salvator Mundi was thought to be painted by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci, but doubts have been cast over the painting's authenticity.

The painting, which was unveiled at The National Gallery's 2011 Leonardo exhibition, broke auction records at Christie's in New York, 2017 when it was bought for $450million (£342million).

Christie's confirmed the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism was 'acquiring' the painting, but its next unveiling, due to take place at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in September, was cancelled with no explanation.  

The Salvator Mundi, which depicts Christ as 'Saviour of the World', is now alleged by some to be a 'workshop Leonardo', painted by one of the artist's studio assistants.

Art historian Jacques Franck told the Sunday Telegraph that senior politicians and Louvre staff 'know that the Salvator Mundi isn't a Leonardo'.

He has reportedly written to French President Emmanuel Macron to warn him against inaugurating the Louvre's Leonardo exhibition this autumn if the allegedly fake painting is included - which would be 'almost scandalous'. 

The painting was also said to be facing a snub from the Louvre in Paris, who were reported to have scrapped plans to display the work in its Leonardo da Vinci exhibition.

But a Louvre spokeswoman told MailOnline: 'The Musée du Louvre has asked for the loan of the Salvator Mundi and wishes to present it in its October exhibition.

'We are waiting for the owner’s answer.

'M. Franck was part of the scholars who have been consulted 7 or 8 years ago for the restoration of the Saint Ann.

'He is not currently working on the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition and has never been curator for the Louvre.

'His opinion is his personal opinion, not the one of the Louvre.'  

The painting's appearance has been said to have changed between the time it was unveiled in 2011 and its auctioning off six years later, raising questions over its restoration.   

Last August reports emerged that Matthew Landrus, a research fellow at Oxford University's Wolfson College, said the artwork was actually painted by da Vinci's assistant Bernardino Luini. 

Reports had suggested that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the painting's buyer. 

Da Vinci scholar Professor Martin Kemp, who helped authenticate the piece a decade ago, had previously told The Times: 'Nobody outside the immediate Arab hierarchy knows where it is.' 

Western diplomats said a Saudi royal acting as a proxy for Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was the buyer.

The Saudi Embassy in Washington says the Saudi royal purchased the painting on behalf of the museum in Abu Dhabi.  

15 Facts About The Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper is one of the most admired, most studied, and most reproduced paintings the world has ever known. But no matter how many times you've seen it, we'll bet you don't know these details. 

1. It's bigger than you think. 

Countless reproductions have been made in all sizes, but the original is about 15 feet by 29 feet.

2. The Last Supper captures a climactic moment. 

Everyone knows the painting depicts Jesus' last meal with his apostles before he was captured and crucified. But more specifically, da Vinci wanted to capture the instant just after Jesus reveals that one of his friends will betray him, complete with reactions of shock and rage from the apostles. In da Vinci's interpretation, the moment also takes place just before the birth of the Eucharist, with Jesus reaching for the bread and a glass of wine that would be the key symbols of this Christian sacrament. 

3. You won't find it in a museum. 

Although The Last Supper is easily one of the world’s most iconic paintings, its permanent home is a convent in Milan, Italy. And moving it would be tricky, to say the least. Da Vinci painted the religious work directly (and fittingly) on the dining hall wall of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie back in 1495. 

4. Although it’s painted on a wall, it's not a fresco. 

Frescos were painted on wet plaster. But da Vinci rejected this traditional technique for several reasons. First off, he wanted to achieve a grander luminosity than the fresco method allowed for. But the bigger problem with frescos—as da Vinci saw it—was that they demanded the painter rush to finish his work before the plaster dried.

5. Da Vinci used a brand new technique on his future masterpiece.

In order to spend all the time he needed to perfect every detail, da Vinci invented his own technique, using tempera paints on stone. He primed the wall with a material that he hoped would accept the tempera and protect the paint against moisture. 

6. Very few of da Vinci's original brushstrokes remain.

Although the painting itself was beloved, da Vinci's tempera-on-stone experiment was a failure. By the early 16th century, the paint had started to flake and decay, and within 50 years, The Last Supper was a ruin of its former glory. Early restoration attempts only made it worse. 

Vibrations from Allied bombings during World War II further contributed to the painting's destruction. Finally, in 1980, a 19-year restoration effort began. The Last Supper was ultimately restored, but it lost much of its original paint along the way. 

7. A hammer and nail helped Da Vinci achieve the one-point perspective. 

Part of what makes The Last Supper so striking is the perspective from which it's painted, which seems to invite the viewer to step right into the dramatic scene. To achieve this illusion, da Vinci hammered a nail into the wall, then tied string to it to make marks that helped guide his hand in creating the painting's angles. 

8. Renovations eliminated a portion of The Last Supper.

In 1652, a doorway was added to the wall that holds the painting. Its construction meant that a lower central chunk of the piece—which included Jesus' feet—was lost.

9. The Last Supper's Judas may have been modeled after a real criminal. 

It is said that the look of every apostle was based on a real-life model. When it came time to pick the face for the traitorous Judas (fifth from the left, holding a bag of telltale silver), da Vinci searched the jails of Milanfor the perfect looking scoundrel.

10. There may be a biblical Easter Egg here.

To the right of Jesus, Thomas stands in profile, his finger pointing up in the air. Some speculate that this gesture is meant to isolate Thomas's finger, which becomes key in a later Bible story when Jesus rises from the dead. Thomas doubts his eyes, and so is entreated to probe Jesus' wounds with his finger to help him believe.

11. The meaning of its food is up for debate. 

The spilled salt before Judas has been said to represent his betrayal, or alternately, is seen as a sign of his bad luck in being the one chosen to betray. The fish served has similarly conflicted readings. If it is meant to be eel, it might represent indoctrination and thereby faith in Jesus. However, if it's herring, then it could symbolize a nonbeliever who denies religion. 

12. It's inspired some wild theories.

In The Templar Revelation, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince propose that the figure to the left of Jesus is not John, but Mary Magdalene, and that The Last Supper is key evidence in a cover-up of the true identity of Christ by the Roman Catholic Church.

Musicians have speculated that the true hidden message in The Last Supper is actually an accompanying soundtrack. In 2007, Italian musician Giovanni Maria Pala created 40 seconds of a somber song using notes supposedly encoded within da Vinci's distinctive composition. 

Three years later, Vatican researcher Sabrina Sforza Galitzia translated the painting's "mathematical and astrological" signs into a message from da Vinci about the end of the world. She claims The Last Supper predicts an apocalyptic flood that will sweep the globe from March 21 to November 1, 4006. 

13. The Last Supper also inspired popular fiction. 

And not just The Da Vinci Code. A pervasive part of the painting's mythology is the story that da Vinci searched for ages for the right model for his Judas. Once he found him, he realized it was the same man who had once posed for him as Jesus. Sadly, years of hard-living and sin had ravaged his once-angelic face. As compelling a story as this is, it’s also totally false. 

How do we know this story isn’t true? For one thing, it's believed that da Vinci took about three years to paint The Last Supper, mostly due to the painter's notorious tendency to procrastinate. For another, stories of spiritual decay manifesting itself physically have long existed. It's likely that someone along the way decided to saddle The Last Supper with a similar narrative in order to give its moral message a sense of historical credibility.

14. It's been mimicked for centuries. 

Fine art and pop culture have paid tribute to The Last Supper with a cavalcade of imitations and parodies. These range from a 16th century oil painting reproduction to new interpretations from Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol, Susan Dorothea White, and Vik Muniz, who made his out of chocolate syrup. 

Recreations of The Last Supper's distinctive tableau can also be found in the Mel Brooks comedy History of the World, Part 1, Paul Thomas Anderson's stoner-noir Inherent Vice, and Luis Buñuel's Viridiana, which was declared "blasphemous" by the Vatican. It's also been a plot point in The Da Vinci Code and Futurama.

15. Want to see The Last Supper in person? Better book (way) in advance.

Though The Last Supper is one of Italy's must-see sites, the convent in which it is located was not built for big crowds. Only 20 to 25 people are allowed in at a time in visiting blocks of 15 minutes. It is recommendedvisitors book tickets to see The Last Supper at least two months in advance. And be sure to dress conservatively, or you may be turned away from the convent.

The Search for the Last Supper

Leonardo da Vinci Made a Secret Copy of ‘The Last Supper’ and, Miraculously, It Still Exists

A new documentary tracks down the second version of Leonardo's masterpiece.

Turns out The Last Supper had a second course. A near-pristine copy of Leonardo da Vinci‘s iconic painting—created by the Renaissance master and his studio—is offering a glimpse into what one of the world’s most famous artworks looked like when it was new.

The Last Supper is simultaneously one of art history’s greatest triumphs and biggest tragedies: The towering artist captured the emotional and dramatic intensity of one of the most important episodes from the Gospels, but he was so committed to outdoing the typical cenacolo fresco that he chose an untested medium, using oil paint that failed to bind with the underlying plaster and began decaying within years of its initial application.

The centuries have not been kind to the masterpiece—only 20 percent of the original painting is thought to remain intact, making it difficult to fully comprehend the impact the piece would have had when it was new. But what if there was a way to turn back time, to return to Leonardo’s studio, if you will, and see The Last Supper as he did?

When authors Jean-Pierre Isbouts and Christopher Heath Brown were working on their 2017 book The Young Leonardo: The Evolution of a Revolutionary Artist, 1472–1499, which follows the Renaissance great from his career beginnings in Florence to his major breakthrough, The Last Supper, they assumed such a miracle was impossible.

Then, one day at a party, a friend told them that there was a second version of the painting, completed by Leonardo and his studio on canvas just a few years after the original mural. “I said ‘you’re crazy!'” Brown told artnet News at a recent screening of the pair’s new documentary short, The Search for the Last Supper, at New York’s Sheen Center for Thought and Culture. The film tracks the origins of this little-known second version and the authors’ efforts to trace it to a remote abbey in Tongerlo, Belgium, an hour outside Antwerp.

When they finally found the second painting, they were amazed to discover just how good the Tongerlo Last Supper looked. The figures line up perfectly, suggesting it was made using the same cartoons used to produce the original. “When we went to overlay them, we had no idea they were going to be such a perfect match,” said Isbouts. The film shows how the work on canvas fills in the gaps in the famed fresco, seemingly completing the painting.

The completion of The Last Supper marked the end of the first stage of Leonardo’s career, the fulfillment of his early promise in the form of a painting immediately recognized for its artistic genius. Among the work’s early admirers, in fact, was King Louis XII of France, who had conquered Milan, and, according to art historian Giorgio Vasari, had taken the time to visit Santa Maria della Grazie.

The king desperately hoped to bring the painting with him to France, which was then severely lacking in arts and culture, “but the fact that it was painted on a wall robbed his Majesty of his desire, and so the picture remained with the Milanese,” wrote Vasari.

According to Brown and Isbouts, the king was nevertheless undeterred. “If he can’t have the fresco itself, he will have the next best thing: a copy on canvas, that he can take back to France,” the documentary explains. The film points to a letter dated to January 1507, tracked down in the archives in Florence, in which the king writes that “we have need of Leonardo da Vinci,” who had an assignment back in his native city.

Based on this evidence, it seems likely that Louis XII commissioned Leonardo and his studio to paint a full-scale copy of The Last Supper, just eight years after they completed the original in 1499. Furthermore, a 1540 inventory of the governor of Milan’s estate in Gaillon, France, includes a “Last Supper on canvas with monumental figures that the king brought over from Milan.”

Brown and Isbouts believe that Andrea Solario, one of Leonardo’s best assistants, was largely responsible for overseeing the work, as he was with other known copies of the artist’s work created by his studio. Solario is known to have been in Milan while Leonardo was completing the original version of The Last Supper, and worked at the Gallion estate beginning in 1507—presumably arriving with the completed copy.

The work was then purchased in 1545 by the abbey in Tongerlo, Belgium—perhaps, the documentary argues, in defiance of Calvinist prohibitions against religious art. At the time, the abbot identified the work as a Leonardo.

Today, Brown and Isbouts have shown the painting to experts who believe some 90 percent of it was done by members of the artist’s studio. The paintings of Jesus Christ and St. John, however, may be by Leonardo himself—unlike the rest of the painting, X-ray analysis shows no underdrawings for these two important figures.

Seeing the long-forgotten copy for the first time “was overwhelming. I was blown away—it’s so vast,” Isbouts said. “The fresco is the fresco and that’s the original painting—but there’s so little you can see! So you need to see Milan, and then you need to see the Tongerlo.”

Leonardo’s studio also produced a third copy in about 1520, led by Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, or Giampietrino, that now belongs to London’s Royal Academy, but it is not as faithful a replica. “Although it is a copy, it was seen as a real window into the achievements of Milan,” and an educational tool for students, the documentary notes. (Because of renovations to the academy, it is currently hung high on the wall of the Magdalen Chapel at Oxford.)

The documentary, which will air on local PBS stations, aims to inform viewers about the little-known Tongerlo copy and its fidelity to the now-nearly ruined original, but also to help raise funds for the much-needed restoration of the canvas. While it is in good shape compared to the ravaged mural, it endured significant damage during a fire at the abbey in 1929.

“It’s made up of multiple canvases stitched together, and they’re very very delicate,” said Isbouts, who expects the full restoration will cost €500,000 ($616,000). “All the funds will be wired directly to the account of the abbey, who are delighted.”

by Sarah Cascone.

The painting ‘Salvator Mundi’ by Leonardo da Vinci at Christie’s

After 19 minutes of dueling, with four bidders on the telephone and one in the room, Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” sold on Wednesday night for $450.3 million with fees, shattering the high for any work of art sold at auction. It far surpassed Picasso’s “Women of Algiers,” which fetched $179.4 million at Christie’s in May 2015. The buyer was not immediately disclosed.

There were gasps throughout the sale, as the bids climbed by tens of millions up to $225 million, by fives up to $260 million, and then by twos. As the bidding slowed, and a buyer pondered the next multi-million-dollar increment, Jussi Pylkkanen, the auctioneer, said, “It’s an historic moment; we’ll wait.”

Toward the end, Alex Rotter, Christie’s co-chairman of postwar and contemporary art, who represented a buyer on the phone, made two big jumps to shake off one last rival bid from Francis de Poortere, Christie’s head of old master paintings.

The price is all the more remarkable at a time when the old masters market is contracting, because of limited supply and collectors’ penchant for contemporary art.

And to critics, the astronomical sale attests to something else — the degree to which salesmanship has come to drive and dominate the conversation about art and its value. Some art experts pointed to the painting’s damaged condition and its questionable authenticity.

“This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality,” said Todd Levin, a New York art adviser.

Christie’s marketing campaign was perhaps unprecedented in the art world; it was the first time the auction house went so far as to enlist an outside agency to advertise the work. Christie’s also released a videothat included top executives pitching the painting to Hong Kong clients as “the holy grail of our business” and likening it to “the discovery of a new planet.” Christie’s called the work “the Last da Vinci,” the only known painting by the Renaissance master still in a private collection (some 15 others are in museums).

“It’s been a brilliant marketing campaign,” said Alan Hobart, director of the Pyms Gallery in London, who has acquired museum-quality artworks across a range of historical periods for the British businessman and collector Graham Kirkham. “This is going to be the future.”

There was a palpable air of anticipation at Christie’s Rockefeller Center headquarters as the art market’s major players filed into the sales room. The capacity crowd included top dealers like Larry Gagosian, David Zwirner and Marc Payot of Hauser & Wirth. Major collectors had traveled here for the sale, among them Eli Broad and Michael Ovitz from Los Angeles; Martin Margulies from Miami; and Stefan Edlis from Chicago. Christie’s had produced special red paddles for those bidding on the Leonardo, and many of its specialists taking bids on the phone wore elegant black.

Earlier, 27,000 people had lined up at pre-auction viewings in Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and New York to glimpse the painting of Christ as “Savior of the World.” Members of the public — indeed, even many cognoscenti — cared little if at all whether the painting might have been executed in part by studio assistants; whether Leonardo had actually made the work himself; or how much of the canvas had been repainted and restored. They just wanted to see a masterwork that dates from about 1500 and was rediscovered in 2005.

“There is extraordinary consensus it is by Leonardo,” said Nicholas Hall, the former co-chairman of old master paintings at Christie’s, who now runs his own Manhattan gallery. “This is the most important old master painting to have been sold at auction in my lifetime.”

That is the kind of name-brand appeal that Christie’s was presumably banking on by placing the painting in its high-profile contemporary art sale, rather than in its less sexy annual old master auction, where it technically belongs. To some extent, the auction house succeeded with the painting even before the sale, having secured a guaranteed $100 million bid from an unidentified third party. It is the 12th artwork to break the $100 million mark at auction, and a new high for any old master at auction, surpassing Rubens’s “Massacre of the Innocents,” which sold for $76.7 million in 2002 (or more than $105 million, adjusted for inflation).

But many art experts argue that Christie’s used marketing window dressing to mask the baggage that comes with the Leonardo, from its compromised condition to its complicated buying history and said that the auction house put the artwork in a contemporary sale to circumvent the scrutiny of old masters experts, many of whom have questioned the painting’s authenticity and condition.

“The composition doesn’t come from Leonardo,” said Jacques Franck, a Paris-based art historian and Leonardo specialist. “He preferred twisted movement. It’s a good studio work with a little Leonardo at best, and it’s very damaged.”

“It’s been called ‘the male Mona Lisa,’” he said, “but it doesn’t look like it at all.” Mr. Franck said he has examined the Mona Lisa out of its frame five times.

Luke Syson, curator of the 2011 National Gallery exhibition in London that featured the painting, said in his catalog essay that “the picture has suffered.” While both hands are well preserved, he said, the painting was “aggressively over cleaned,” resulting in abrasion of the whole surface, “especially in the face and hair of Christ.”

Christie’s maintains that it was upfront about the much-restored, damaged condition of the oil-on-panel, which shows Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left holding a crystal orb.

But Christie’s was also slow to release an official condition report and its authenticity warranty on the Leonardo runs out in five years, as it does on all lots bought at its auctions, according to the small print in the back of its sale catalog.

The auction house has also played down the painting’s volatile sales history.

The artwork has been the subject of legal disputes and amassed a price history that ranges from less than $10,000 in 2005, when it was spotted at an estate auction, to $200 million when it was first offered for sale by a consortium of three dealers in 2012. But no institution besides the Dallas Museum of Art, which in 2012 made an undisclosed offer on the painting, showed public interest in buying it. Finally, in 2013, Sotheby’s sold it privately for $80 million to Yves Bouvier, a Swiss art dealer and businessman. Soon afterward, he sold it for $127.5 million, to the family trust of the Russian billionaire collector Dmitry E. Rybolovlev. Mr. Rybolovlev’s family trust was the seller on Wednesday night.

There was speculation that Liu Yiqian, a Chinese billionaire and co-founder with his wife of the Long Museum in Shanghai, may have been among the bidders. In recent years, the former taxi-driver-turned-power collector has become known for his splashy, record-breaking art purchases, including an Amedeo Modigliani nude painting for $170.4 million at a Christie’s auction in 2015. But in a message sent to a reporter via WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, Mr. Liu said he was not among the bidders for the Leonardo.

On Thursday morning, soon after the final sale was announced, Mr. Liu posted a message on his WeChat social media feed. “Da Vinci’s Savior sold for 400 million USD, congratulations to the buyer,” he wrote. “Feeling kind of defeated right now.”

By ROBIN POGREBIN and SCOTT REYBURN