Believed to have been painted around 1500, “Salvator Mundi” was one of two similar works listed in an inventory of the collection of King Charles I of England after his execution in 1649, Professor [Martin] Kemp said. But the painting disappeared from the historical record in the late 18th century.Here's a time-lapse view of the restoration, beginning with the "drug-crazed hippie" and ending with Professor Modestini's vision:
The painting sold at the record auction later turned up in the collection of a 19th-century British industrialist. It had been so heavily painted over that “it looked like a drug-crazed hippie,” Professor Kemp said, and it was attributed at the time to one of Leonardo’s followers. In 1958, it was sold out of that collection for the equivalent of $1,350 in today’s dollars.
The claim that the painting was the work of Leonardo himself originated after a pair of dealers spotted it at an auction in New Orleans in 2005 and brought it to Professor Modestini of N.Y.U.
She stripped away overpainting, repaired damage made by a split in the wood panel, and restored details. Among other things, one of Jesus’s hands appeared to have two thumbs, possibly because the artist changed his mind about where the thumb should be and painted over the original thumb. It had been exposed by scraping later on, and Professor Modestini covered the thumb she believed Leonardo did not want.
March 31, 2019
"Now the Louvre Abu Dhabi’s failure to exhibit 'Salvator Mundi' as promised has revived doubts about whether it is Leonardo’s at all..."
"... with skeptics speculating that the new owner may fear public scrutiny.... Others have argued that the painting was so extensively restored by Professor Modestini that it is as much her work as Leonardo’s," the NYT reports in "A Leonardo Made a $450 Million Splash. Now There’s No Sign of It."
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23 comments:
“it looked like a drug-crazed hippie,” Professor Kemp said..
That Jesus does look like a cross between Lance the Drug Dealer from Pulp Fiction and Terry the Hippie from Caddyshack.
The question isn't about the painting but about the dollars.
The drug-crazed hippie only looks like he's 500 years old.
I read a funny article about her "restoring" (re-painting) the eyes and trying to get them the same size without looking too goofy.
I'll bet the guy who lost the auction is having a giant sigh of relief.
"Was Tchaikovsky the world's greatest composer, or just an old poof who wrote tunes?"
I saw Leonardo's "Lady with an Ermine" in Krakow. It was so beautiful I couldn't take my eyes off it.
We can get you Leonardo da Vinci wholesale!
Others have argued that the painting was so extensively restored by Professor Modestini that it is as much her work as Leonardo’s
There is a lot of professional jealousy in the restoration discipline.
That's one "ugly-ass" painting using OJ's preferred adjective. Leonardo Da Vinci was too good an artist to produce a eyesore like that.
Do I see hints of cleavage?
Transgender Mona Lisa?
There's an excellent BBC show called Fake or Fortune which over many episodes explores the whole art restoration, forgery, and authentication racket.
"Carefully following the remnants of [the] original, which contain a line of drawing to place the lower lid, resulted in eyes of slightly different size; the left is smaller than the right. Imposing a more logical or definite shape caused the eyes to completely change character…."
He's got His mother's eyes.
Aren't the odds someone got fleeced about 100% in this case? We don't even really know that "Mona Lisa" was painted by Da Vinci, only that the one in The Louvre has the "legitimate" title to being the "Mona Lisa" today due its being in the museum for over 200 years, and in France for over 400 years.
Fake fake fake; The painting screams it.
Most masterpieces in the museums are fake
Here's another painting from abt 1500 that is reminiscent of the alleged Da Vinci.
Dürer was roundly criticised for painting himself in Christ's image. His self-portrait at age 26 in 1493 was also denounced as irreverent.
I'd never heard of the Louvre Abu Dhabi. I thought the French were all hot to preserve their culture, why are they selling it to Persian Gulf tycoons?
I thought the French were all hot to preserve their culture
I thought the rich Arabs were all hot to escape their culture--for weekends in Gay Paree.
@Lance
Many museums have satellite museums in other countries. Some have been private collections bequeathed to the cities in which they were founded,such as Peggy Guggenheim's Venice collection. There is a spectacular Guggenheim designed by Frank Gehry in Bilbao Spain and one in the works in Abu Dhabi.
Given that political instability and/or natural disasters can occur anywhere, and the rise of iconoclasm, it makes sense to have collections dispersed.
Of course it's fake. I mean, like, that's not really Jesus but some other guy.
I don't know which is worse, a Gehry building or this ugly assed fake Leonardo.
I ran the video several times. I never saw two thumbs, though I did see two left forefingers at one point.
Is it true that we don't have any objective or subjective standards for deciding the value of a work of art? That we can only accept as "great art" the authenticated work of an accepted genius?
The version on the left (crazed hippy) is "by Da Vinci" so we know it's good; the version on thr right has been retouched by a non-genius, so we can't tell if it's good. Is that the argument here?
If the restoration is "legitimate" and the restoration looks like what Da VInci intended, then perhaps we would agree it's good; but if we can't be sure we can't say. Am I getting this right? Personally, I have an aesthetic judgement that tells me that the picture on the right (restored) is more beautiful than the picture on the left, and the restoration does look (to me) a bit like the Woman with the Ermine (thanks to the commenter for that connection).
On the other hand the recently authenticated Van Gogh of red poppies, left me flat.
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