The most expensive painting ever sold in the world might be… a fake

Culture&Arts Nilgun Salim
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The notorious painting, apparently executed by the world’s most famous artist, Leonardo da Vinci, was sold last week for over 380 million euros.

The lucky seller is Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev managed to score the incredible amount of money which, at the same time, covered all the transfers he has signed in summer.

According to the Russian press, the 50-year-old businessman attended the New York auction where he has sold the painting entitled by Leonardo da Vinci “Salvator Mundi” to someone who wanted it for an impressive amount of time.

Unfortunately for Dmitry, a few days after the auction, all sorts of controversies have surfaced and most of them suggest the painting is actually fake.

More precisely, it would not belong to the famous Italian artist, but to Giovanni Boltraffio, an extremely talented boy employed at Da Vinci’s studio.

“I’m not a historian, but I am analyzing paintings for more than 50-years-old and this does not look like a painting made by Leonardo”, stated New York Magazine’s art critic Jerry Saltz.

Another interesting aspect is the fact that the painting “Salvator Mundi” would have been sold in 1958 during a Sotheby’s auction, with only $60.

It was only in 2011, someone has discovered this was actually painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

In May 2013, Rybolovlev bought the artwork for $127.5 million

According to some experts, the Jesus Christ painting is currently the most expensive painting ever sold.

The old record was owned by Willem de Kooning’s “Interchange”, a work of art sold for about 303 million US dollars (equivalent to 254 million euros at that time) in September 2015.

Rybolovlev is the 190th richest man in the world, according to Forbes, with a fortune estimated at 7.4 billion US dollars and the 15th richest man in Russia.