Oy Vey Gevalt

Newswire:   "A photograph of the painting taken before 1912 records its compromised appearance at that time.  This photograph has recently been circulated in the media, as has another photo [with Christ in a red tunic], incorrectly identified as the (recently rediscovered) work."
 
The media has been circulating photos of the de Ganay da Vinci... not the recently UnCovered "Simon" da Vinci.





































Is it the real thing?  Adjusting for brightness and contrast reveals:




































This view gave me such a shock my heart stopped.  With the scholars who agreed within a day of examination... I can say this painting is the real Leonardo.

Supporting Documents:  The Windsor Studies for Salvator Mundi by da Vinci:
























Isn't Leonardo's working method interesting?  He laid out the tunic on a flat surface to study the folds, while the sleeve details are from a model.





































The Hollar Engraving from the original Leonardo:





































This is as close as we will get to the details of the original in situ.

One last test:  Is the 1912 photo of the badly damaged, overpainted all but destroyed da Vinci the Simon authentic or the de Ganay (fake)?

The Simon da Vinci with 1912 photo overlay:





































The de Ganay "da Vinci" with 1912 photo overlay:




































Don't you find this comparison Very Curious?  If you ask me (and why not@!) the 1912 photo is of the de Ganay "da Vinci" and not the recently authenticated Simon da Vinci.  This would support my theory that the nuns wrecked the de Ganay da Vinci with overpainting and that Marquis de Ganay had it restored between 1912 and 1999. 
Also... regarding the 1912 photo the time is always ripe for faking da Vinci's.

Fie on Thee Christopher W. Taylor!

Christopher W. Taylor
The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute
2318 Fillmore Street
San Francisco, CA 94115

Dear Mr. Taylor,

Now that an authentic da Vinci has been unveiled, all references to the "Salvator Mundi" are under scrutiny.  Regrettably your paper "How did Leonardo Perceive Himself?  Metric Iconography of da Vinci's Self-Portraits" contains a glaring inaccuracy.  Vasari was describing not the Salvator Mundi but the Mona Lisa in the passage he wrote beginning:  "In his head, whoever wished to see how closely art......"  Unfortunately your misattribution has been repeated hundreds of times.

Yours sincerely,

Bhikshuni Vinaya
Ugly Buddhist Woman
Oy Vey Gevalt Blog
　

Provenance:
Once owned by Marquis de Ganay "Salvator Mundi" was auctioned by Sotheby's May 1999 in its "Important Old Masters Paintings" auction.  It sold for $332,500.
According to The City Review:

The highlight of the early works was Lot 20, "Christ as Salvator Mundi," by Circle of Leonardi da Vinci (1452-1519), a 27 by 19 1/4 inch oil on panel that was in less than pristine condition and which is not in the widely recognized style of the great master. "The most compelling document for a Leonardo painting of this subject...is the existence of a print by Wenceslaus Hollar, the great Bohemian engraver, which is clearly captioned "Leonardus da Vinci pinxit...," the catalogue wrote. There are about 12 paintings that are related to the print, "of various levels of quality," it continued, adding that the present work, "cloistered away in the Béhague/de Ganay collection and thus unknown to most scholars until the early 1970's, is perhaps the most accomplished of the varous examples." The lot was estimated at 80,000 to $120,000 and sold for $332,500. If it were an autograph work, of course, it would be worth an extra two digits.  "Important Old Master Paintings; Sotheby's; May 1999"

de Ganay believed the painting to be an original da Vinci.  He had in his collection, at one time, three authentic da Vinci studies of drapery, two of which sold in 1989 for $10.8 million.

(see also: SNOW-SMITH, Joanne, The "Salvator Mundi" of Leonardo da Vinci, exhibition catalogue. Henry Art Gallery (Seattle: University of Washington, 1982). Guerrini 5489
Building upon the pioneering essay by Ludwig Heydenreich ("Leonardo's Salvator Mundi," Raccolta Vinciana 20 [1964], pp. 83-109), the author provides a detailed study of the version in the collection of the Marquis de Ganay, which she attributes to Leonardo. The catalogue includes a discussion of the many other versions of this composition and the iconographic tradition to which it belongs.)


Who purchased the painting for $325,500 in 1999 and how many owners has it had since then?

The crucial question is: When was it restored?
Before the 1999 auction it can be seen in its present state: here and here.

This is the picture the media have been circulating as the recently discovered da Vinci.  But this painting was never lost, and is not the "Simon" da Vinci.

The "Simon" da Vinci in a 1912 photo.

Note the strange cropping left and right.  Da Vinci would Not have chopped off the thumb and part of the globe on the right, nor the knuckles and sleeve on the left.  So we are not getting the complete picture here.

"In 1958, the piece was sold for £45 at an auction in Sotheby's of London by trustees of the Cook collection, who mistakenly attributed it to Boltraffio, an Italian Renaissance painter considered da Vinci's best student."

(Who fucked it up with overpainting?  Read on, I blame the nuns!)
Here is where the history of the two paintings becomes confused:

"The Salvator Mundi (saviour of the World) was commissioned by Louis XII of France in 1506 and Leonardo had finished the work by 1513. The image of Christ giving his blessing to the world was a popular subject in French and Flemish art and the half- length pose is typical of the era.    On the death of his wife  the painting was donated, by Louis, to a religious order who had connections with his wife, in Nantes. A century later  Henrietta Maria, Queen of England, saw the painting in 1650 (the year after her husband Charles Ist was executed) she asked the artist Wenceslaus Hollar to make an etching of the work to add to her collection.

"In the 19th century the convent that possessed the painting was dissolved and the Salvator Mundi was sold to Baron de Lareinty of Paris. After subsequent sales the work came into the possession of the (then) present owner the Marquis de Ganay."  Salvator Mundi. Leonardo's Lost Painting??


Here is the de Ganay Salvator Mundi with pre-restoration "Simon" overlay..