'Not remotely like a da Vinci': New York Magazine art critic doubts authenticity

A day before the painting “Salvator Mundi” sold for a record-breaking US$450 million, New York Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz had already called the work a “probable copy” and a “two-dimensional ersatz dashboard Jesus.”

“I think we’ve wished this da Vinci into existence,” Saltz told CTV News Channel from New York on Thursday. “I think it’s fake art news.”

The painting, whose Latin name means “Saviour of the World,” was sold to an unnamed private buyer by Christie’s auction house on Wednesday, shattering a previous art sale record by more than $150 million. According to Christie’s, it dates from around 1500 and was painted by the great Italian Renaissance artist and polymath Leonardo da Vinci. In the run-up to this week’s auction, Christie’s billed the painting as “the last da Vinci” and “the greatest and most unexpected artistic rediscovery of the 21st century.” There are fewer than 20 known da Vinci paintings in the world.

“I think it’s a real flimflam,” Saltz said. “I think that if you really look at this painting, Leonardo never painted anyone remotely like this: never anybody looking dead-on, never a surface this dull, inert -- a mess! And Christie’s claims there’s a consensus claiming that it might be real. Actually, it’s 12 people and the foremost da Vinci expert in the world thinks on the contrary, that this is not remotely like a da Vinci.”

Allegedly painted between masterpieces like “The Last Supper” and the “Mona Lisa,” the comparatively bland “Salvator Mundi,” Saltz added, seems very out-of-place.

“Christie’s is really banking on this being real based on maybe two drawings that are similar to Jesus’ sleeves,” Saltz said. “But Leonardo definitely did do drawings like this, but these were done for his students to show them how to do sleeves. He didn’t paint this painting.”

If the painting is in fact a genuine da Vinci, Saltz said that it should never have been auctioned off to a private buyer in the first place.

“If it’s a da Vinci, it belongs in a museum,” Saltz declared.

With files from CTV News Channel and The Associated Press

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