Saudi Arabia is thought to be the owner of the most expensive painting in the world, Salvator Mundi. Latin meaning “Saviour of the World” and a picture of Christ.
The painting, Salvator Mundi, which is thought to have been created by one of the Italian High Renaissance masters, Leonardo Da Vinci, is valued at $450.3 million and was purchased by Prince Badr bin Abdullah Al Saud on November 15, 2017, at a Christie’s auction in New York, breaking the previous record for the most expensive work of art to ever be sold at a public auction.
The controversy surrounding the picture has made it famous in addition to its astounding price. Art historians continue to disagree about whether Da Vinci created this work. But what is the subject of the artwork and where is it? Didn’t Da Vinci paint that, too?
Jesus Christ is depicted in the painting wearing an out-of-date blue Renaissance dress, making the sign of the cross with his right hand, and holding a clear, non-reflecting crystal orb in his left hand to signify that he is the “saviour of the world” and to symbolise the “celestial sphere” of the heavens. It is believed to have been copied from a lost original veiled overpainting and dates to approximately 1499–1510.
Later, it was recovered, restored, and then displayed at the National Gallery in London from 2011 to 2012. Then in 2017, Christie’s held its largest public auction in New York. It sold for $450,312,500, setting a new art market record. The painting’s validity was already a subject of debate at this time, but none anticipated that it would vanish so quickly following the auction, leaving its whereabouts a mystery. Prince Badr bin Abdullah of Saudi Arabia was revealed to be the buyer.
The Wall Street Journal stated in December 2017 that Prince Badr served as a middleman for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Christie claims that Prince Badr, however, operated on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism for the Louvre Abu Dhabi display. However, the show was put on hold indefinitely in September 2018. In 2019, a number of news reports began asserting that no one is aware of the painting’s location and that there are “grave worries for its safety.”
There have been conflicting allegations that the picture is in Geneva storage or even on bin Salman’s private yacht cruising the Red Sea. And eventually, as new rumours and conspiracy theories emerged, the plot started to get more complicated. For example, Saudi Arabia reportedly refused to lend the painting to the Louvre because it did not want to display it next to the Mona Lisa.
