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Who Owns Beauty?
How art became a public good — and why this may not last
In 2017, a painting most people had never seen or heard of sold for almost half a billion dollars. Salvator Mundi, an image of Jesus likely painted by Leonardo da Vinci, was purchased by the Saudi royal family for $450 million, making it comfortably the most expensive artwork ever.
The painting’s path to prominence was a confusing one. Art historians had long known that Leonardo had painted a salvator mundi — a common bit of Christian iconography featuring Jesus blessing the world with his right hand and holding a globe in his left. Others had written about Leonardo’s original and several artists had made their own copies of it. The painting had featured in the collection of some English kings and nobles in the 1600s, but, somewhere along the way, people lost track of it. Multiple attempts at restoration had altered the painting, and the painting’s owners thought they owned a copy, not the original. It sold in 1958 for £45.
By the 21st century, the painting was a mess; it had been painted over and looked terrible. But the painting’s owners — a group that had bought it for just over $1000 — thought they…
