Why Is the Salvator Mundi Called the World’s Most Controversial Painting?

Plenty of paintings have been called the “most controversial,” and the Salvator Mundi (produced after 1500; “Savior of the World”) is only the latest to be given that title. After the artwork sold as a previously lost Leonardo da Vinci in 2017 for $450.3 million—the highest price paid for a work of art at auction to date—it became an object of intense scrutiny. The reason for the interest may have had to do with the seemingly exorbitant sum paid for a painting with a number of serious defects, which, theoretically, should have kept its auction price in check. These issues include the Salvator Mundi’s poor condition, debatable attribution, and unconfirmed history.

When two New York dealers purchased the Salvator Mundi in 2005 at a small auction in New Orleans, it was in bad shape. The piece had been inadequately restored and heavily overpainted. Moreover, its wood support had been infested with worms. The dealers took the work to renowned art restorer Dianne Modestini, who oversaw the support’s reconstruction and then stripped the overpainting and filled in missing parts. Yet, despite Modestini’s painstaking efforts, the painting still appears rather odd, in my opinion. The face of Christ, the focus of the piece, remains ghostly, and his features appear weak. The painting certainly does not inspire the same contemplation or admiration that Leonardo’s other works do.

While many critics later noted that the Salvator Mundi has interesting passages, including the soft modeling of Jesus’ right hand and the finesse of his tight curls, they doubted that the work was entirely by Leonardo. The attribution continues to be a subject of debate among scholars and critics. Those who question the painting’s attribution to Leonardo not only consider the depiction of Jesus as having feeble features, but they also describe the head-on composition as stiff and unlike Leonardo’s characteristic twisting poses. Others, including Michael Daley, the director of ArtWatch UK, noted the unconvincing representation of the glass globe in Jesus’ hand. If it had been made of solid glass, the globe would have distorted the view of its holder. The artist, who is well known for his extensive scientific studies, would have known about this type of optical phenomenon. Christie’s, the auction house that managed the record-breaking sale, dismissed the criticisms. It asserted that there was “broad consensus” among scholars that the work was by Leonardo. Indeed, news reports in 2021 described an undisclosed Louvre document that confirmed the painting’s attribution to Leonardo after rigorous scientific analysis. But because the Salvator Mundi was never shown at the museum (as had been planned for the 2019 Leonardo exhibition), officials are prohibited by law from discussing the evaluation or authentication of privately owned works. Consequently, no official record of the painting’s attribution officially exists.

Christie’s presented a narrative in its promotional material wherein the painting appeared in 1650 on the inventory records of Charles I of England. But that claim was always shaky, and journalist Ben Lewis’s investigation of the Salvator Mundi’s provenance (the ownership history of an object) cast doubt on that point, suggesting that the work listed in Charles I’s inventory was a different painting with Salvator iconography. Indeed, a version of the painting in Moscow’s Pushkin Museum was certainly part of the English royal collection, for it is stamped with “CR” (for Carolus Rex) on the back of its support. It is more likely that this painting, which is attributed to Giampietrino, a pupil of Leonardo’s, is the one referred to in the Charles I inventory. Hence, there are no confirmed records of the nearly half-billion-dollar Salvator Mundi painting until 1900, when it was acquired by Sir John Charles Robinson for the collection of Sir Francis Cook in London. That means the provenance has a nearly 400-year gap between the painting’s supposed creation and its appearance on the market.

The record-setting sale of an artwork with such serious defects is perhaps only one of the reasons that the Salvator Mundi is the latest artwork to be called the “most controversial.” Issues with the painting are further explored in such works as Lewis’s book The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting (2019) and the documentary The Lost Leonardo (2021).