Ha I was just listening to this before. Apparently there’s under 20 of his works known to exist. Hopefully the person who has bought it can put it in a public gallery so everyone can enjoy it.
Believe it or not, most of the most famous paintings in the world that are on public display are expert copies, the real ones rarely get viewed publicly.
Interesting that there was some doubt about the authenticity yet Christie’s still sold it, I have seen them turn down paintings that had questionable provenance etc. but $50million commission may have been too sweet to resist.
I remember seeing this a couple weeks ago. The globe in his hand apparently doesn’t reflect any light or shouldn’t be see through from the painters perspective. Although it is drawn that way.
As pointed out earlier, there was some serious doubt regarding authenticity. I read a good article explaining how out of line this work is with Da Vinci.
I want to believe the 450m was in good faith, but at this point, I think art sold in this range is money laundering unless buyer/seller is public. It’s one of the last available avenues to anonymously transfer cash between countries. Am I crazy or is this still a thing?
I never thought about that. 50k for coffee here, pay this country for x use of space. I think it would be tough to scale for millions of dollars. It would be easy for the 10k-250k payments that would normally be reported.