Last Leonardo

Regular price €16.99
A01=Ben Lewis
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assistant
auction
authentic
Author_Ben Lewis
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Bernardino Luini
c. 1400 to c. 1500
c. 1500 to c. 1600
caravaggio
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=ACND
Category=AGA
Category=BGF
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Christie’s
conspiracy
COP=United Kingdom
Da Vinci Code
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Language_English
leonardo da vinci
Luke Syson Frank Zollner Michael Daley Jerry Saltz Abu Dhabi Mona Lisa Louvre
manet
mbs
millions
mohammed bin salman
monet
most expensive painting
netflix
New York
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Price_€10 to €20
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Rembrandt
Renaissance
rubens
salvator mundi
saudi prince
school
softlaunch
Sotheby’s
this is a robbery
vermeer

Product details

  • ISBN 9780008313449
  • Weight: 330g
  • Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
  • Publication Date: 16 Apr 2020
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

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In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries.

In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is ‘the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived’. Its dazzling price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting.

For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself?

In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.

Ben Lewis is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, television presenter, author and art critic, who has specialized in the art world, art market and history of art for twenty years. He has written about art for Prospect Magazine, the Evening Standard, the Observer and The Times to Liberation and Die Welt. Lewis has contributed to documentary films such as The Great Contemporary Art Bubble, A Bankers Guide to Art and my television series Art Safari. He is the author of Hammer and Tickle.