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Last Da Vinci becomes most expensive artwork ever sold

UPDATE, November 16th 2017: Leonardo Da Vinci's Salvator Mundi sold for a record $400 million – plus $50 million of fees – making it the most expensive artwork ever auctioned. We don't know who bought it: the lucky buyer bid by telephone and chose to keep their identity private.

Published: 15 November 2017 13:35 CET
Updated: 16 November 2017 08:45 CET
Last Da Vinci becomes most expensive artwork ever sold
Salvator Mundi on display at Christie's New York, where the painting will be auctioned on November 15th. Photo: Tolga Akmen/AFP.

Salvator Mundi, Da Vinci’s long-lost painting of Christ, goes on auction in New York on Wednesday night – giving collectors a once-in-a-lifetime chance to buy one of the Renaissance genius’ works, all others of which are already owned by museums.

The 500-year-old painting is set to smash all auction records for an Old Master, with bids expected to top $100 million.

That almost certainly puts it out of reach for either the Italian state or any of Italy’s art museums, none of which have announced plans to bid for the work.

Salvator Mundi is currently owned by a Russian billionaire, Dmitry Rybolovlev, who bought it from a Swiss art dealer for $127.5 million in 2013.

The painting re-entered the art market in 2005, when some art experts acquired it for relative peanuts at a local auction in the United States. Heavily painted over and gnawed by worms, the work was unrecognizable until restoration revealed traces of Da Vinci’s trademark techniques.


Photo: 2011 Salvator Mundi LLC/AFP

Christ’s delicately placed hand, the intricate curls of his hair and the haunting quality of his expression have led to comparisons with Da Vinci’s most famous portrait, the Mona Lisa.

Like that work, now a prized possession of the Louvre in Paris, Salvator Mundi seems destined to remain outside Italy.

It has never been exhibited in Da Vinci’s home country, having been commissioned by Louis XII of France and later sold to Charles I of England. It remained in the hands of English aristocrats until it made its way to the US in the 20th century.

Since its rediscovery, the work has been displayed at the National Gallery in London, as well as Christie’s auction houses in Hong Kong and the US.

Art lovers can nonetheless find numerous Da Vinci originals in Italy, including The Last Supper on the walls of the Santa Maria delle Grazie church in Milan, the Annunciation at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and the Vitruvian Man in Venice’s Gallerie dell’Accademia – not to mention the farmhouse where the painter was born in the Tuscan town of Vinci. 

Under export laws introduced to help keep Italy's artistic heritage in the country, any work created more than 70 years ago by an artist now deceased requires permission from the Italian state before it can be sold overseas.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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