Saudi Crown Prince MBS Pressed The Louvre To Lie About His Fake Leonardo Da Vinci, Per New Doc

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2021/04/09/saudi-crown-prince-mbs-pressed-the-louvre-to-lie-about-his-fake-leonardo-da-vinci-per-new-documentary/

Apr 9, 2021,10:20am EDT

Suzanne Rowan Kelleher Forbes Staff

A new feature-length documentary set to debut next week on French TV alleges that Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman pressured the Louvre to lie about the authenticity of a painting he had purchased in order to spare him the public humiliation of having spent $450 million on a fake.

“The Savior for Sale,” by French filmmaker Antoine Vitkine, delves into the murky controversy surrounding the Salvator Mundi, or “Savior of the World,” a portrait of Jesus Christ that has been dubbed the “male Mona Lisa.” The painting made art world history in 2017 when nearly 1,000 art collectors, dealers and onlookers packed into a room at Rockefeller Center in New York as the venerable Christie’s auction house sold the painting for a record $450 million, making it the world’s most expensive painting.

The vast public interest — 120,000 art fans watched the auction via a Facebok live stream — and extravagant winning bid reflected the extreme rarity of authenticated works by Leonardo da Vinci. Despite the Italian master’s enormous fame and influence, there are fewer than 20 paintings in existence judged to be from his own hand — and all of them part of museum collections. Christie’s called the painting “the greatest artistic rediscovery of the last 100 years.”

Questions over the Salvator Mundi’s authenticity began to percolate when the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum unexpectedly canceled the painting’s planned unveiling in September 2018. The painting has not been seen in public since.

The whereabouts of the work remained a mystery until, in 2019, the art industry news service Artnet reported that the 500-year-old painting was being kept on Mohammed bin Salman’s 440-foot superyacht, Serene.

-/snip-

He's a duMBaSs...

[joetheman]

1. Money is worth a thousand pictures. nt

[Dream Girl]

2. This all so disgusting.

[EYESORE 9001]

3. Some people just stick a plastic statuette of St. Christopher on the dashboard of their car

When you have much more money than sense, you need Salvator Mundi on your superyacht. Wonder what various Islamic sects think about his fascination with overpriced art depicting Jesus, who is considered a prophet in Muslim writings? Oh, BTW, isn't the the aniconism rule enforced on the self-appointed guardian of the faith?

[bullwinkle428]

4. Chump has done the very same thing regarding his "artwork", claiming the prints he had

on his walls were actually the originals. I think I read this in the Rick Reilly book, which focused on his golf-related exploits.