The price of something – and then its value
Less than a month ago, at private lunch also attended by both the publisher and the editor of The Rust, I was pleased to learn from them that a recently-conducted survey had revealed our arts coverage had registered the highest ‘quality appreciation’ score of all amongst our readership.
Here I shall refrain from making the obvious but perhaps over-obsequious comment that the revelation does not surprise me in the slightest – standing as it does as a compelling testament to our readers’ discerning, superior and erudite nature sensibilities(!) – but simply add that, in common with all this organ’s editorial ‘departments’, our Arts columnists have always stuck to the guiding principle that we only ever post upon subjects that have attracted our interest from time to time.
Which brings me to my ‘topic du jour’ – the painting Salvator Mundi by Leonard da Vinci, dated to about 1500 according to current expert opinion, which was sold on 15th November 2017 by Christie’ in New York for US$450.3 million to Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed Al Farhan, acting on behalf of the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism.
After being authenticated by some experts of great reputation hired for the specific purpose of determining whether it really was/is by the hand of Leonardo himself (a view still contested by others, it should be noted) – it stands as the current reigning holder of the title ‘world’s most valuable painting’ – albeit, of course, that general or personal opinion around the world might (and probably does) maintain that there exist tens of thousands of other artworks which rank as ‘priceless’ in the ‘beyond mere monetary value’ sense of the word.
Please take time to have a careful look at the exquisite details of this legendary work [see right].
I suspect even a chimpanzee could and would agree that it has great quality.
On the level of punter appreciation, completely ignoring what it is allegedly worth, it is the sort of image – whether it be in the form or an original painting, a copy of an original painting, a print of an original painting, or even just a jpeg version – that anyone could bear looking at regularly and enjoying.
And yet the fact is that in the art world, and perhaps also society at large, one can never quite divorce one’s view of a piece of art from its context.
By which I mean its history; its provenance; who (and how famous or notorious) its originator was or is; and indeed even the knowledge that great figures thorough known human history have metaphorically ‘bowed down before it’ and taken the trouble to visit and/or ‘acquire’ it in order to advance their own appreciation of art and perhaps humanity.
It’s never quite – ultimately – a case of “I don’t know anything about art (or music, or architecture, or literature), but I know what I like’, is it?
However, with Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi there are some fascinating complications that individually – and certainly in my view taken together – go right to the heart of the essentials behind great works of art.
I’m talking about whether it is by Leonardo at all. And, if it is, what we behold in 2018 (if we should ever get the opportunity) in the flesh, it is all by Leonardo or only partly so?
And if it is only partly so, which parts?
Is a painting a greater experience to take in when it is left untouched – or rather more accurately ‘left un-retouched or restored’ – or when later learned and highly-skilled efforts have been made to reduce (and/or dodge completely) the ravages of time in pursuit of the dream/intention that modern onlookers can ‘see it as the painter himself not only intended but actually saw it himself in his own lifetime’?
Some fundamental and difficult issues exist in that spectrum.
For example, take this very work that today is Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi, which during 17th Century – at different times, obviously – was in the possession of both Kings Charles I and Charles II. Sometime later (and then for almost 200 years) it went missing until it was bought by Francis Cook, a British collector, in 1900.
By then it had been ‘restored’ (and over-painted) on numerous occasions [see the photograph of it taken sometime between 1908 and 1910, left] and in 1958 it was sold at auction by Cook’s grandson for the sum of £45, being then attributed to Leonardo pupil Giovanni Antonio Boltaffio.
To cut a long story very short, in 2005 the painting was acquired in New Orleans by a group of experts that believed there was a chance that, beneath all the ‘restoration’, a genuine original Leonardo artwork might exist.
It was subsequently authenticated as such and – after being bought and exhibited in various places as a rediscovered original Leonardo – it ended in the 2017 Christie’s auction in New York.
Now an image has emerged of the Salvator Mundi as it was once it had been completely stripped back of all its ‘restoration’ work over the centuries [see right].
I invite Rust readers to compare this new image with that of the ‘newly-restored’ version which was sold by Christie’s in 2017 [see above right earlier in this piece].
Very different, aren’t they?
Taken together – in a very stark manner – these two images make us confront what the world of art is all about.
Is the recently-sold Salvator Mundi … or the version of how the original painting looked after being denuded of all restoration work … the greater work of art?
I won’t add here the adages “You pays your money and you take your choice” or even “Does it even matter? A piece of art, like anything in life, is only ever worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it”.
Here’s a link to an article by art correspondent Jonathan Jones (on the latest image of Salvator Mundi and its implications) as appears today upon the website of – THE GUARDIAN
