[11][12] Prices realised for just his nine paintings listed below, when adjusted for inflation to 2017, add up to over US$900million. So I thought, "What if Gates cut up all the drawings into individual little works of art and sold them off that way? At an auction held at Christie's New York in 2016 during a contemporary art event, Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci turned into the most expensive painting ever sold, selling for $450 million at the end of a nineteen-minute bidding war. This means the Codex is certainly one of the world's most valuable pieces of art. Why Would Anyone Pay $450 Million for the 'Salvator Mundi'? Because No one in the art world knows for sure where the painting is. Later in 2002, Thomson donated his private collection, including the Rubens, to the. They brought it to Dianne Modestini, a highly respected restorer, who removed decades of grime and overpainting, and was the first to suspect it might be a true Leonardo. He's the head of the Books, Maps and Manuscripts department at Freeman's Auction House in Philadelphia. $50 million through Sothebys in 1997. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. MASSEY: Still with me then at five-million five hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand, five-million eight hundred thousand. Leonardos gracious but reserved personality and elegant bearing were well-received in court circles. And so, the first place we looked were the auction records for the Codex from the 1980 and the 1994 sales. We should note here that we did reach out to Christie's, as well as Bill Gates to ask if they had any comments on the value of the Codex today. And to put into perspective, how much less art sold for 40 years ago, the sale of the Codex was the fifth-highest price for any piece of art sold at auction ever. The world's 10 most valuable artworks | World Economic Forum There are a great many superb extant pen and pencil drawings from this period, including many technical sketchesfor example, pumps, military weapons, mechanical apparatusthat offer evidence of Leonardos interest in and knowledge of technical matters even at the outset of his career. TINDERA: Hammer is also the great-grandfather of Hollywood actor Armie Hammer. His Last Supper (149598) and Mona Lisa (c. 150319) are among the most widely popular and influential paintings of the Renaissance. Many factors seem to have converged to create this flourishing moment for true art crime. On November 20, 2014 at Sotheby's, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art bought her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. TINDERA: But admittedly, Darren told us that he wasn't a da Vinci, or Codex expert and was hesitant to put a value on it out of the gate. But when I saw it, it didn't sit comfortably with me as an autograph Leonardo." [15] Not listed here in this list is Chinese painter Wang Shaofei's The High Sun, which was appraised for $74 million in 2017.[16]. Well, as we mentioned, the most expensive painting ever sold at auction was the Salvator Mundi for $450 million. A Belgian banker and collector who bought it in 1939 for $18,000. TINDERA: Right. Omissions? The Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auctions 10. A jump to $400m. Now There's No Sign of It", "Leonardo da Vinci Painting 'Salvator Mundi' Sells for $450.3 Million", "Billionaire Griffin Pays $500 Million for Two Paintings", Welt-online: Das Rtsel vom teuersten Bild aller Zeiten, "Qatar Purchases Czanne's The Card Players for More Than $250 Million, Highest Price Ever for a Work of Art", "Lawsuit Reveals Gauguin Painting Was Not World's Most Expensive", "Gauguin Painting Is Said to Fetch Nearly $300 Million", "Russian Billionaire Seeks to Pull Sotheby's Into Art-World Fight", "The tangled history of Klimt's '$170m' Water Serpents", "The Billionaire, the Dealer, and the $186 Million Rothko", Portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit by Rembrandt, an exceptionnal acquisition exhibited at the Muse du Louvre, "Buyer of record-setting Picasso painting revealed", "Picasso and Giacometti Artworks Top $120 Million Each at Christie's Sale", "Netherlands to buy Rembrandt Standard Bearer self-portrait", "The Netherlands Is Ready to Spend $198 Million to Bring a Rembrandt Self-Portrait Back Home for Good", "Chinese Taxi Driver Turned Billionaire Bought Modigliani Painting", "With $170.4 Million Sale at Auction, Modigliani Work Joins Rarefied Nine-Figure Club", A Pollock Is Sold, Possibly for a Record Price, "Auction Sales Down at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips, in a Challenging 2016", "Agnes Gund Sells a Lichtenstein to Start Criminal Justice Fund", "Steve Cohen buys Roy Lichtenstein's 'Masterpiece' for $165 million", Lauder Pays $135 Million, a Record, for a Klimt Portrait, $616 Million Poorer, Hedge Fund Owner Still Buys Art, "The Gustav Klimt Painting Oprah Reportedly Sold for $150M Has Quite a Story", "Francis Bacon triptych smashes art auction record", Buyer of $142.4 Million Bacon Triptych Identified as Elaine Wynn, "Bacon's Study of Freud Sells for $142.4 Million", "Qi Baishi Just Became the First Chinese Artist to Break the $100 Million Mark at Auction", An Art Mystery Solved: Mogul Is 'Scream' Buyer, "A $100 Million Mystery: A Russian, His Art, and His Big Losses", "Planting a Johns 'Flag' in a Private Collection", "Who Bought the Brody Picasso for $106m? There is so much information in the public sphere that everyone can have the illusion of being an insider. It is Oil on wood and measures 168 x 130 cm (5 1/2 x 4 1/2 ft.). Twenty-eight million. ", https://www.telegraph.co.uk/luxury/art/art-sales-russian-buyers-inject-confidence-into-old-master-marke/, Picasso piece sets record for art sold at auction, qatar may have purchased Warhol's 'Eight Elvises', "Nahmads confirm Picasso's $115m flower girl will go to Paris", "Rockefeller Picasso sells for $115 million including feesauthor=Robert Frank", "DIC Sells 'Anna's Light' Painting For Y10.3bn Gain", "Regarding extraordinary profit associated with the sale of a certain painting owned by the company and revision of its consolidated operating result forecast", "How Basquiat Became the $60 Million Man", "A Basquiat Sells for 'Mind-Blowing' $110.5 Million at Auction", A Monet Sells for $110.7 Million, an Auction High for an Impressionist Work, "Qatar bought Ford House's $100-million Cezanne", "$100M for Czanne painting? Back in 1980 according to an Associated Press report, the man who was the Earl of Leicester at the time decided to sell the Codex, which had been part of the Earl's estate for more than 250 years. And then, how do we rationalize the difference in the kind of object it is? It depicts the dramatic scene described in several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26: . The New York Times confirmed rumours that the Louvre wouldn't accede to bin Salman's demand that his painting be displayed in the same room as the Mona Lisa, giving it near-equal status. He currently resides in Vinci, Italy. SIMON: My feeling was that the Codex was quite a bit more valuable than any single drawing would be. 1 (Royal Red and Blue)", "Claude Monet (18401926), Odalisque couche aux magnolias", "Basquiat Tops Phillips Contemporary Sale at $85 Million", "Titian masterpiece Diana and Callisto saved for nation", "No. Two new documentaries delve into the ongoing saga of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi in a moment when true art crime stories are at their peak, writes Caryn James. TINDERA: On sale is a one-of-a kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript known as the Codex Hammer. All the Leonardo Da Vincis in the world: rated | Leonardo da Vinci $450 million That price more than doubled the. The Annunciation by Leonardo da Vinci. In 1482 Leonardo moved to Milan to work in the service of the citys dukea surprising step when one realizes that the 30-year-old artist had just received his first substantial commissions from his native city of Florence: the unfinished panel painting Adoration of the Magi for the monastery of San Donato a Scopeto and an altar painting for the St. Bernard Chapel in the Palazzo della Signoria, which was never begun. Art restorer Dianne Modestini in a scene from The Lost Leonardo, one of two new documentaries about the Salvator Mundi (Credit: Sony Pictures Classics/Entertainment Pictures). He Died in May 2, 1519 in Amboise, Kingdom of France.His Famous works includes Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Vitruvian Man Style/Period: High Renaissance Biography. TINDERA: That average of every expert opinion worked out to about $130 million. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. During this first Milanese period he also made one of his most famous works, the monumental wall painting Last Supper (149598) in the refectory of the monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie (for more analysis of this work, see below Last Supper). SIMON: What it does is make you realize how important the fact that the Codex has survived intact is. Nonetheless, Leonardos notebooks reveal a sharp intellect, and his contributions to art, including methods of representing space, three-dimensional objects, and the human figure, cannot be overstated. In both films, Luke Syson, the curator of the show, stands by his decision. But he went even beyond that. In 1993, Simon was hired by the trustees of the Armand Hammer Museum to do an appraisal of the Codex back when it was known as the Codex Hammer. In this episode of Priceless, staff writer Michela Tindera and deputy wealth editor Chase Peterson-Withorn explain how Forbes determines the value of a one-of-a-kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript that Bill Gates purchased in 1994. SIMON: And if you look at the illuminated manuscripts that are from, you know, missiles, and you know, these are Renaissance manuscripts, many of them have been broken apart. Or is it? 20 of Leonardo Da Vinci Most Famous Paintings - Iconic Artworks! TINDERA: The Italian government had reportedly been expected to participate in the auction. Leonardo da Vinci, (Italian: "Leonardo from Vinci") (born April 15, 1452, Anchiano, near Vinci, Republic of Florence [Italy]died May 2, 1519, Cloux [now Clos-Luc], France), Italian painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and engineer whose skill and intelligence, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist (Maybe so, but in the films and other reproduced images it does have a more cloying look). Leonardo devoted 12 yearswith interruptionsto this task. Leonardo da Vinci - 205 artworks - painting - WikiArt An artist by disposition and endowment, he considered his eyes to be his main avenue to knowledge; to Leonardo, sight was mans highest sense because it alone conveyed the facts of experience immediately, correctly, and with certainty. [4] In constant dollars, the highest price paid before 1987 was by the National Gallery of Art when in February 1967 they acquired Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra de' Benci for around $5 million ($41million in 2021 dollars) from the Princely Family of Liechtenstein. Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought it that year, and 14 years later, Gates bought it at another auction. And how does that help us come up with a number for today? Following the French Revolution it was moved to the Louvre. The Burlington House Cartoon by Leonardo da Vinci. 9. The rest are owned by museums around the world. But there would, there are people in the world that would probably do that. Six-million five hundred thousand, seven million. Top 10 Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auction This episode was reported by Michela Tindera, produced by Michela Tindera and Jonathan Palmer, with additional research by Sue Radlauer. On permanent display at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on 14 December 1962. LONDON A tiny Leonardo da Vinci sketch sold on Thursday at Christie's for 8.9 million with fees, or about $12.2 million, a record price for a Leonardo drawing at auction . The work of Leonardo is just as influential to the art that is being created today as it was in the 15th and 16th centuries, he said. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Earlier this summer, very fittingly, as the country's oldest auction house, they sold a copy of the Declaration of Independence for $4.4 million. The source says he advised the government that "exhibiting under the Saudi conditions would be like laundering a piece that cost $450 million". They arrive in the wake of Ben Lewis's high-profile 2019 book, The Last Leonardo, and dozens of articles. On the last telephone, 18 million. French President Emmanuel Macron pictured in 2018 with the owner of the Leonardo, Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (Credit: Photo by Bandar Algaloud/Getty Images), "The Louvre is supported by the government, the ministry of culture and ultimately Macron," Cole tells BBC Culture. However, other critics have disagreed with the truth of that claim. The US art critic Jerry Saltz rails in The Lost Leonardo that "it's not even a good painting", much less a great Leonardo, while true believers gush that seeing it in person is a transcendent experience. This time, though, it sold for three times that in the battle we heard about at the beginning of the episode between Gates and the Italian bank. See a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings, Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi sold for $400 million at Christies ($450.3m, including auction house premium), One of four versions of The Scream created by Munch and the only one that is privately owned. Five-point-five million dollars to start. The bidding then resumed: $353m, $355m. At the time bin Salman was trying to burnish Saudi Arabia's image by loosening a few restrictions. Five hundred years later, the Codex is in such good condition, in part because it hasn't changed hands many times. In 2011, the National Gallery included it in the exhibition Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan. I've worked as well as an art appraiser. And so, you've got the painting itself is you know, much more of a rare object. Last Supper, Italian Cenacolo, one of the most famous artworks in the world, painted by Leonardo da Vinci probably between 1495 and 1498 for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. (or simply Leonardo) (Leonardo diser Piero ser da Vinci) (Italian, 1452-1519). Renaissance artist, inventor, polymath, musician, and architect who painted the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper and drew the iconic Vitruvian Man. So Gates sort of went out and bought the ultimate book. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes (1607) attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. Love film and TV? In this period, he painted very little and instead focused on his scientific activity, specifically his study of anatomy. Art Sales: Russian buyers inject confidence into Old Master market: Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17, Pendant portraits of Maerten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Chteau Noir, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), Portrait of a Young Man holding a Roundel, Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, Femme au bret et la robe quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter), List of most expensive artworks by living artists, List of most expensive non-fungible tokens, List of most expensive books and manuscripts, Abu Dhabi Department of Culture & Tourism, For Founders to Decorators, Facebook Riches, Mystery Buyer of Work Attributed to Caravaggio Revealed, Caravaggio Painting Estimated at $170 M. Sold Privately Ahead of Auction in France, "El enigma detrs del Van Gogh que sali de la Argentina", "The Red Vineyard Painting at annaboch.com", "Anna Boch.com Impressionist, patron of many artists", "The Most Expensive Female Artists 2016 artnet News", "The Chinese Ink Paintings of Wang Shaofei Break the World Record", "Abu Dhabi to acquire Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi': Christie's", "A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash. One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Last Supper was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo's patron during his first stay in that city, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. "And it is involved therefore in the politics around culture. At $28 million. If all we do is adjust the $30.8 million that Gates paid for it for inflation, that gets us to somewhere around $50 million today. TINDERA: Simon also included another work by da Vinci: a sheet of studies including sketches of a child embracing a lamb. While dozens of manuscripts like the Codex have managed to survive the centuries intact, the Codex Leicester is the only da Vinci notebook that is still in private hands. SIMON: This is the clipping that I had taken out of the New York Times in 1980, when it was to be auctioned when Armand Hammer bought it. That included footing the bill for not only the Codex he purchased for the $5 million in 1980, but also the tens of millions of dollars spent creating his own art museum in Los Angeles. A list in another currency may be in a slightly different order due to exchange-rate fluctuations. 1503-1519). Cole was the first to report, in March 2020, the existence of a 46-page booklet the Louvre prepared for publication but never released, which asserts that the piece is an authentic Leonardo. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Leonardo spent 17 years in Milan, until Ludovicos fall from power in 1499. Two years later, some colourful characters entered the game. Twenty-eight million dollars, then. During his second period in Florence (1500-1508), he painted his most famous work, the Mona Lisa (ca. It's worth at least what Gates paid for it. She was universally considered to be the painter's sitter. Leonardo da Vinci painting sells for $450m at auction, smashing records He also pulled together a list of artwork that he found it to be similar to. ARCHIVAL CLIP OF ARMAND HAMMER: I guess I'm wearing a great many hats. Author of. A jump to $370. The Secretes of Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021.[3]. It then disappeared again until it was bought at a small U.S. auction house in 2005. The disciples, devastated by Christ stating one of them would cause his death, convey their feelings dramatically through their body language. Using monthly averages gives slightly different numbers, most significantly for paintings sold early or late in a year with significant inflation. So Gates buying Leonardo da Vinci's notebook is the equivalent of a typical 66-year-old splurging ona new iPad. The original one is now located at Muse du Louvre, Paris. TINDERA: Now the audience in the room doesnt know this, but a representative for Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates is bidding on the phone. PETERSON-WITHORN: Art is one of the toughest things we value for our lists, because the value is just so subjective, and you really don't know what something will sell for until it hits the auction block. He applied his creativity to every realm in which graphic representation is used: he was a painter, sculptor, architect, and engineer. I wana write a poem about it. On July 12, 2011, $75M was equivalent to 53M. The painting, which dates to around 1500, was lost to history for more than 200 years, was damaged and badly restored, and was sold and resold as a minor work, probably by a Leonardo acolyte.. It's now been determined that his painting is not, in fact, a da Vinci. Mona Lisa is not only Leonardo da Vinci's most famous painting but the entire world's most famous painting. ", Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi was sold by Christie's in 2017 for a record-breaking $450 million (Credit: Photo by Ilya S Savenok/Getty Images for Christie's Auction House). I'm an art dealer in New York. How many Leonardo da Vinci paintings are there? MASSEY: At 16 million, 17 million. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021. Two of his most important worksthe Battle of Anghiari and the Leda, neither of them completedhave survived only in copies. But uncertainty is key to the appeal of every version of the story, as Lewis tells BBC Culture: "Nobody knows if it is a Leonardo, so you too can play the game, you can do your own Da Vinci Code on the Salvator Mundi. TINDERA: Simon shared with us his own process for how he estimated the fair market value in the appraisal he put together nearly 30 years ago. Leonardo da Vinci not only developed his skill in drawing, painting and sculpting during his apprenticeship, but through others working in and around the studio, he picked up knowledge in such diverse fields as mechanics, carpentry, metallurgy, architectural drafting and chemistry. I expected to pay much more. TINDERA: Okay, so our $4 billion estimate isn't all that realistic. So, they decided to hold an auction through Christie's, and it took place in London in December 1980. Leonardo da Vinci | Biography, Art, Paintings, Mona Lisa, Drawings There's also something called primacy, which is being the first. But now the Salvator Mundi has become the poster boy for the volatile mix of money, power and geopolitics that defines the art world today. The sale of Salvator Mundi, which was painted around 1500 and presumed lost until early this century, was Rybolovlevs largest to date. Last Supper (c. 1495-98) Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com. The only non-Western modern artwork listed is that of the Chinese-French painter Zao Wouki's oil painting Juin-Octobre 1985, which was sold for $65 million in 2018. Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci. TINDERA: Okay, so to recap, when it sold in 1980, it was expected to sell for $10 million, but ended up going for half that. And then there's also rarity, or how rare this exact copy or version of a book or manuscript is. TINDERA: I'm looking through a copy of whats now called the Codex Leicester, which I purchased online for about $30. CBS CLIP, CONNIE CHUNG: You know, you may be the richest man in America, or at least the second-richest man in America. So, you know, it's something I've sort of been following for, you know, a good part of my life. One sold for nearly $6 million, and the other for $5.2 million. Price excludes sales commission and other costs. The artwork alone garners thousands of visitors from around the world to the famous gallery it is placed in - the . For her part, Modestini has documented her work and the scientific studies of the painting, and published them online. And one of the other, one of the principles and differences between, say an auction estimate and an appraisaland this is for what we call fair market value appraisalis that we come up with a single value, understanding that it's very rare that we kind of hit the bull's eye, but that is the opinion of the appraiser. Definitive Guide To All of Leonardo da Vinci's Paintings + Where To Thanks for having me. Because at the end of the day, it's an entertaining story.". Previewing the lot last month, Christies described the painting of Christ holding a crystal orb in his left hand and raising his right in benediction as the biggest discovery of the 21st century. (crowd laughs) Good start. Antique Heliogravure on wove paper after t.. 620: 1893 Leonardo da Vinci Bust of an Old Man in Roman Costume print signed Est: $ 500 - $ 700 View sold prices Feb. 05, 2023 KCM Galleries Cape Coral, FL, US How much is the Mona Lisa worth as legendary painting gets caked at Louvre? Alan Wintermute, a senior specialist in old master paintings at Christies in London, called it the holy grail of old masters. In contrast, there are currently only nine pre-1875 paintings among the listed top 89, and none created between 1635 and 1874. Leonardo Da Vinci 1503 It was kept it at the Palace at Fontainebleau, where it remained until King Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. Thanks for joining me. In total, Christies said, 27,000 people had seen the work on a pre-sale tour with stops in Hong Kong, London and San Francisco. It then becomes a first edition of Moby Dick. Edvard Munch "The Scream" (1895): $135.2 million 9. Bin Salman himself visited President Emmanuel Macron in Paris while the loan was dangling in the balance. CLIP OF BILL GATES: Taking Leonardo's notebook and translating them so everybody can understand the way that da Vinci thought a little better than before is very important. Like we did earlier in this episode, he considered the price that it sold for in 1980. Leonardo da Vinci's paintings: a guide to 8 famous works In 1472 Leonardo was accepted into the painters guild of Florence, but he remained in his teachers workshop for five more years, after which time he worked independently in Florence until 1481. Because the Louvre cannot comment on privately-owned works it has not displayed, the book can't be published, and at first, Cole says, the museum denied its existence. In New York last night, he said he had never doubted the piece would break records. Scholars have been unable to agree in their attributions of these works. This stands as the most expensive painting by a living artist. TINDERA: Gates is up against a group from a bank in Milan thats sitting in the front of the Christie's salesroom. Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christie's in New York for $450.3m .