By James Tarmy
\nBloomberg Pursuits<\/p>\n
Even before Leonardo Da Vinci\u2019s\u00a0Salvator Mundi<\/em>\u00a0went to auction last night at Christie\u2019s in New York, naysayers from around the art world were savaging its authenticity. Various advisors were muttering darkly, both online and in the auction previews, and one day\u00a0before the sale\u00a0New York\u00a0<\/em>magazine\u2019s Jerry Saltz\u00a0wrote<\/a>\u00a0that though he\u2019s \u201cno art historian or any kind of expert in old masters,\u201d just \u201cone look at this painting tells me it\u2019s no Leonardo.\u201d<\/p>\n And that was before the painting obliterated every previous auction record, selling, with premium, for $450 million.<\/p>\n Shortly after the gavel came down\u00a0on Wednesday evening, the\u00a0New York Times published<\/a>\u00a0a piece by the critic Jason Farago where, after also noting that he\u2019s \u201cnot the man to affirm or reject its attribution,\u201d declared that the painting is \u201ca proficient but not especially distinguished religious picture from turn-of-the-16th-century Lombardy, put through a wringer of restorations.\u201d<\/p>\n Had the buyer of the most expensive painting in the world just purchased a piece of junk?<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the most relevant people believe it\u2019s by Leonardo, so the rather extensive criticism that goes \u2018I don\u2019t know anything about old masters, but I don\u2019t think it\u2019s by Leonardo\u2019 shouldn\u2019t ever have gone to print,\u201d says the British old masters dealer\u00a0Charles Beddington<\/a>. \u201cYes, it\u2019s a picture that needed to be extensively restored. But the fact that it\u2019s unanimously accepted as a Leonardo shows it\u2019s in good enough condition that there weren\u2019t questions of authenticity.\u201d<\/p>\n After speaking to multiple prominent old masters dealers\u2014 a group not exactly known for holding its tongue\u2014 the real issue regarding the Leonardo\u2019s validity seems to be a question of education: \u201cAll old masters have had work done to them,\u201d says the dealer\u00a0Rafael Valls<\/a>, whose London gallery is directly across from Christie\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve all been scrubbed and cleaned, but when you think about a particular painting and say, \u2018oh it\u2019s by Titian, but a quarter of it was recreated by other restorers,\u2019\u00a0it still is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n Those in the art world who dismiss its authenticity, dealers say, are simply transferring criteria used to judge contemporary art onto old masters\u2014the equivalent of comparing the specs of a new Honda against\u00a0a Ferrari from 1965. They\u2019re both cars, but that\u2019s where the similarities end.<\/p>\n \u201cTo a certain extent you have to put condition aside,\u201d says the dealer\u00a0Johnny van Haeften<\/a>. \u201cOf course it\u2019s not perfect, and of course it\u2019s not mint. But can you get another one?\u201d<\/p>\n The painting was probably done in 1500, and by the 1600s it had made it into the court of Charles I, after which it popped up intermittently in inventory records, disappearing in the 1700s and then reappearing in 1900, when it was counted among the inventory of a manor house in Richmond. It was then sold in 1958 and disappeared yet again, only to resurface at auction in 2005, when\u00a0three old masters dealers<\/a>\u00a0picked it up for $10,000.<\/p>\n The dealers hired the noted restorer Dianne Dwyer\u00a0Modestini (previously of New York\u2019s Metropolitan Museum of Art) to remove much of the filth and varnish, at which point the painting was effectively a shell of its former self, and significant portions of the composition were missing altogether.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen the picture stripped,\u201d says Van Haeften, who is friends with one of the work\u2019s previous owners. \u201cThere are damages to the panel, and it has certainly had a checkered career.\u201d<\/p>\n The Leonardo could have been damaged in any number of ways.\u00a0First, there\u2019s transportation to consider\u2014it had to make its way from Leonardo\u2019s studio to England on horseback, or in a cart, and then by boat. Then consider the conditions of wherever it hung for the next several centuries: There could have been a leaky roof, a moldy room, or a smoky candelabra nearby.<\/p>\n Of course, people even in the 18th century were aware that their paintings got filthy, and so \u201cnormally, every time paintings changed hands,\u201d Beddington, the dealer says, \u201cthey got cleaned quite harshly.\u201d The Leonardo, he says, \u201cobviously changed hands quite a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n Every time a painting was scrubbed, \u201cwhen you cleaned something like that orb, which is delicately painted, you end up taking something away from it,\u201d Beddington continues. \u201cAnd that\u2019s normal.\u201d<\/p>\n When Modestini restored\u00a0the painting, therefore, it was expected that she would paint in what had been lost\u2014both by her cleaning and by cleanings of previous owners\u2014in a way that was \u201ckeeping in character with what is left,\u201d Beddington says.<\/p>\n The question for\u00a0most old masters buyers then, is not whether a painting is \u201cauthentic,\u201d but to what degree it\u2019s original. \u201cFor the vast majority of old masters, condition is of enormous importance,\u201d says Van Haeften.<\/p>\n Many old masters have only minimal damage or restoration\u2014\u201can awful lot of Canalettos are in a near-perfect state,\u201d says the dealer\u00a0Simon Dickinson<\/a>\u2014but when it comes to infinitely rarer artworks, \u201cmaybe in the case of a Michelangelo, Raphael, and Vermeer, you have to compromise on the condition,\u201d van Haeften says. \u201cBecause there\u2019s no other possibility of acquiring one.\u201d<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/themillenniumreport.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/1510896434627.jpg\")
<\/div>\n<\/div>Leonardo Da Vinci\u2019s\u00a0Salvator Mundi<\/em>, which sold at Christie\u2019s on Wednesday for $450 million.\u00a0 Source: Christie\u2019s<\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
<\/h6>\n<\/div>A detail of the painting.\u00a0 Source: Christie\u2019s<\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
The Backstory<\/h2>\n
<\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\nA black-and-white photograph of the painting as it existed\u00a0in 1904.\u00a0\u00a0Source: Christie\u2019s<\/h5>\n
Bruised and Battered<\/h2>\n
<\/h6>\n<\/div>A screenshot of a video released by Christie\u2019s that transitioned from an\u00a0infrared scan of the painting to the restored work.\u00a0 Source: Christie\u2019s<\/h5>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A Question of Degrees<\/h2>\n