Christie’s to sell Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi

Christie’s has announced that it will sell Salvator Mundi, a recently-rediscovered painting by Leonardo da Vinci, in its post-war and contemporary art sale in New York on 15 November.

The depiction of Christ with his right hand raised in blessing is estimated at $100m. It belongs to the Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev and is the last painting by the Renaissance artist in private hands.

The auction house unveiled Salvator Mundi to the press yesterday, 10 October, alongside a 32 ft-long canvas by Andy Warhol, Sixty Last Suppers (1986), a Pop homage to Leonardo da Vinci’s celebrated fresco, which Christie’s has estimated at $50m.

Both Salvator Mundi and Sixty Last Suppers carry third party guarantees, the auction house said.

The decision to include a painting from around 1500 in an auction for work made after 1945 is an unusual marketing strategy. “We thought about it very carefully. It’s the story we are telling, in the context that we built,” said Alexander Rotter, Christie’s head of post-war and contemporary art in New York.
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