Public Will Get to See Da Vinci Masterpiece That Fetched $450 Million

(Bloomberg) -- A Leonardo Da Vinci masterpiece that sold for a record $450 million will be unveiled for the public later this year at the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum.

The painting, “Salvator Mundi,” acquired in November by the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism, can be viewed starting Sept. 18, the museum said Wednesday in a statement on its website. Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saud bid for the piece on the department’s behalf.

The cost of general admission to the museum is about $17. The work will be loaned to the Louvre in Paris, where it will be on display from Oct. 24, 2019, to Feb. 24, 2020, as part of a bigger Da Vinci exhibition.

Painted 500 years ago, the work had belonged to English kings and, more recently, Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev. Deemed lost for years, it was rediscovered in 2005, and underwent a complex restoration and authentication. About 20 paintings attributed to Da Vinci have survived. More than 30,000 people viewed “Salvator Mundi” during Christie’s promotional tour before last year’s auction.

"Lost and hidden for so long in private hands, Leonard Da Vinci’s masterpiece is now our gift to the world,” Mohamed Khalifa Al Mubarak, chairman of the culture department, said in the statement. “It belongs to all of us.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Katya Kazakina in New York at kkazakina@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Pierre Paulden at ppaulden@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Steven Crabill

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