The painting was thought to be one of a number of copies of the possible, long-lost Leonardo painting, an image of which was depicted in a 1650 etching by Wenceslaus Hollar bearing the Latin inscription “Leonardus da Vinci pinxit”.
Expert opinion varies slightly on the dating. Most consulting scholars place the painting at the end of Leonardo’s Milanese period in the later 1490s.
French princess Henrietta Maria marries King Charles I of England (1600-1649), the greatest picture collector of his age. It has been speculated that she brings the painting to England, whereupon it hangs in the private chambers at her palace in Greenwich until, with Civil War looming, she flees England in 1644.
On November 15, 2017 the painting at a Christie’s auction was sold for the price of $400 million, the highest price ever paid for a work of art.
Salvator Mundi by Leonardo Da Vinci
