Leonardo da Vinci’s Painting Draws $450 Million

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By Artprice.com, Special for USDR

thierry Ehrmann: “Once again Artprice has demonstrated its understanding of the art market, having forecast a result somewhere in the $450 – 500 million range. A forecast that was correct with Salvator Mundi fetching $450.3 million, as reported by the AOF Press Agency this morning.”

The last Da Vinci, “Salvator Mundi” (Savior of the world)

New York #Artprice #DaVinci – A painting by Italian artist LEONARDO DA VINCI , ‘Salvator Mundi”, sold for $450.3 millionon Wednesday at Christies’s New York, breaking the world record for the most expensive painting ever sold.

Ehrmann recalls that it is not so much less than the French auction market’s revenue in a whole year: $579 million for 69,500 lots sold in 2016. This is also about what all the entire Old Masters segment’s sales are worth in over 12 months: $558 million in 2016. This art period defined as the Old Masters has become the smallest segment of the Art Market, well below the Contemporary Art, $1.1 billion in 2016.

After a bidding sequence that lasted 19 minutes, Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World), the last Da Vinci painting still in private hands, demolished the world’s all-time Fine Art auction record set by Pablo Picasso’s Les Femmes d’Alger(version O) at $179.4 million in 2015.

According to Christie’s Old Masters specialist, Alan Wintermute, Salvator Mundi – Da Vinci’s male equivalent of the Mona Lisa – is the “Holy Grail of Old Master Art”. However, this absolute masterpiece was not scheduled for sale in Christie’s latest Old Masters session on October 31.

Today, ancient masterpieces are extremely rare on the market. Of the 100 best auction sales of all time, only 8 artworks were created before the 19th century. Among them, two paintings by Rubens (including the Massacre of the Innocents(c.1608), sold for $76.7 million in 2002), three ancestral Chinese paintings, and two preparatory drawings by Raphael.

Thanks to the miraculously recovered Salvator Mundi, Antique Art is back in the limelight. It proves that the interest of collectors for historic art has by no means diminished, it just lacks outstanding works in circulation.

Thanks to this lot, Christie’s accomplished the second best session in its history last night: $788.9 million with 49 lots and 9 unsold. In November 2014, Christie’s was able to award 75 lots in one evening for a total of $852 million (including fees). The highlight of this record session was Andy Warhol’s 1963 Triple Elvis that sold for $82 million. Last night, another important piece of the Prince of Pop Art was on sale, Sixty last Suppers (1986), the last painting he made before his death. But this immense tribute to the Florentine painter faded away in front of Da Vinci’s original.

Russian collector Rybolovlev estimated he had been wronged by dealer Yves Bouvier, who had sold him the Salvatore Mundi in 2013 for $127 million. He might have to rectify his accusations.

With last night’s sale, Christie’s broke with traditions by mixing artistic periods, thereby confirming the eminently spectacular nature of Contemporary & Post-War Art sales, and the fact that Contemporary Art is now very much the art market’s primary motor.

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The text presented hereafter is a translation of Arte Creative’s online presentation: ARTE: A gigantic Christmas tree in the guise of a butt plug, a machine that defecates five-star meals, an icon immersed in urine and staged corpses – subversive, trash, provocative or insulting? Thierry Ehrmann, the man behind The Abode of Chaos dixit “The New York Times“, an artist and the founder of Artprice, is the mouthpiece for scandal and discloses the workings of the most striking controversies in contemporary art. And scandal sells. 9 episodes are online: http://www.arte.tv/guide/en/weekly- highlight

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