Discovered "Savior of the world" brush Leonardo, for centuries considered missing

The painting of Leonardo da Vinci, which was lost many centuries ago, was identified jointly by experts from the USA and Europe. The masterpiece will be exhibited at the London National Gallery, as part of the exhibition Leonardo , which will open on November 9, reports the website ARTnews.com.

The painting “Savior of the World” (Salvator Mundi) depicts Christ with his right hand raised in a blessing gesture and his left hand holding the globe. It is painted in oil on a wooden panel 66x47cm in size.

“This is one of the greatest discoveries of the art world in the last hundred years,” notes one of the scientists.

The work belonged to a consortium of businessmen, which included Robert Simon, a New York specialist in old masters. According to some reports, it was bought at a sale of real estate in the United States six to seven years ago. Simon declined to comment on the picture, the price and location of the auction. “I was asked not to discuss this,” he says.

Two years ago, Simon handed the panel over to the Metropolitan Museum of Art so that curators and restorers would study it. “When the panel was brought to the restoration studio, it turned out to be a painting that had long been forgotten. The painting was covered with an additional layer of paint and, in general, looked very much like a copy. The tree cracked and darkened over time. However, when the restorer applied artificial resin to it, the material turned gray and allowed almost without harm to remove the outer layer of paint, under which was a very delicate work. Everyone agreed that the painting belongs to Leonardo’s brush, ”says an anonymous source close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Last year, work was shown to the curators of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Then, 18 months ago, she was brought to the National Gallery in London. Nicholas Penny, director of the museum, and Luke Syson, curator of the upcoming exhibition, invited four Leonardo specialists to the museum’s restoration studio. The purpose of the invitation was not announced, Penny simply promised to show them something interesting.

The invitees included Carmen Bambach (curator of the department of graphics and painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art), Pietro Marani (head of the restoration of the Last Supper by Leonardo in Milan), Maria-Teresa Fiorio (author of many books about the Renaissance, including a biography of Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio, who considered the best student of Leonardo) and Martin Kemp (professor emeritus of art history at Oxford University, who spent more than forty years studying da Vinci). Simon attended the meeting.

According to the stenographer, “the painting was damaged and repainted. This is not a rare practice among old masters: they have to be intensively restored. The paint was lost, which is not surprising. The condition cannot be called impeccable, but this was enough to convey a wonderful impression. ”

“Salvator Mundi” by Leonardo da Vinci before and after restoration:

The first documented owner of the painting was King Charles I of England. After she passed to Charles II. Then it became problematic to track the path of the picture, so there is a gap from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century.

In the 19th century, the painting was acquired by a British collector, Sir Francis Cook (1817–1901). According to Burlington Magazine, he had “extraordinary paintings,” including the work of Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, van Eyck, Velazquez and Rembrandt. In the late forties of the last year, the picture was exhibited in England along with other works from the Cook’s collection. Then it was listed as "Milan School (c. 1500)." In 1958, she was sold by the trustees of the Cook’s collection at Sotheby’s in London for 45 pounds (today it is about 2000 rubles). The catalog indicated that this is Boltraffio’s work.

The theme of “Savior of the World” was popularized by Dutch artists Jan van Eyck and Albrecht Dürer. In Italy, it began to develop actively during the Renaissance.

Of Leonardo’s other works that will be exhibited at the National Gallery, mention should be made of The Girl with an Ermine from the Czartoryski Museum in Krakow, Poland. According to unofficial information from the Western press, the National Gallery paid $ 800,000 to lend the painting for the duration of the exhibition. When, “A girl with an ermine” was discovered many years ago, she was received ambiguously. It took time to be apprehended properly.

The exhibition at the National Gallery will run until February 5, 2012. It will be dedicated to the years that Leonardo spent at the court of Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of Milan. Last May, Sison told a Guardian reporter that borrowing one of his genius paintings would be an achievement, but seven is a real miracle. Some exhibits will leave museums in Italy and France for the first time to be exhibited in London.

One of the researchers notes that the consortium has reduced the price for it to $ 100 million. “I was told that they used to ask for $ 200 million for the picture,” he says. However, Simon noted that, as a representative of the owners, he officially claims that the painting is not for sale.

The news about the planned appearance of the “Savior of the World” at the exhibition did not pass without criticism. One of the curators noted: “Many were very surprised when they heard that the gallery would include in the exhibition work that was put up for sale for such a huge amount.” However, if you take into account Simon’s assurances that it is not for sale, then there can be no place for surprise.

Lyricist: Milton Esterow / ArtNews.com

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