‘Finding a real Leonardo in a private American Collection is like finding a new planet.’
—Louis S. Levy, Counsel for Sir Joseph Duveen, in his opening argument at the trial of Hahn v. Duveen, 19291
This brash statement offered at the celebrated court case involving a putative painting by Leonardo remains remarkably apposite today. Paintings by the master are as significant culturally as the planets are celestially, and of an almost equivalent rarity. And as recent astronomical discourses have shown, the definition of a planet, like that of the attribution of so significant a painting, is never absolutely resolved.
The limited number of paintings generally acknowledged to be by Leonardo can be contrasted with the plethora of those produced by his students, followers, and imitators. This disparity has engendered regular attempts at promoting one or another painting as a lost work by the artist, but despite these many efforts, no painting has been widely accepted as autograph since the Benois Madonna (St. Petersburg, Hermitage) appeared over a century ago.2
In 2011 the National Gallery in London organized the extraordinary exhibition Leonardo da Vinci; Painter at the Court of Milan. Included there was a painting shown publicly for the first time as a work by Leonardo without qualification—an intense, spiritually evocative bust-length depiction of an almost-beardless Christ, with his right arm raised in benediction and his left holding a crystal orb. The subject, Christ as the Saviour of the World (or Salvator Mundi), had previously been explored by many artists. But, as with every project—artistic or otherwise—undertaken by Leonardo, he transformed it into something astonishing that had only a tenuous connection with its historical antecedents.
While the painting has been discussed—in the catalogue for the exhibition, reviews of it, and subsequent articles—the present volume is the first complete analysis of this essential addition to Leonardo’s oeuvre.3 As such it will serve both as an introduction to the study of the painting and a reference for the future explorations that it will surely provoke. However, it is not intended to be an exhaustive treatment of the subject. As with an opera having a grand and intricate plot, this book will consider three facets of the story, each in depth, while necessarily bypassing many ancillary issues.
The first ‘act’ of the book relates the painting’s journey from anonymity in America, with no provenance and in severely compromised condition, to its public revelation as a work by Leonardo at the exhibition in London. The six-year process of research and conservation, and the introduction to scholars of this unexpected addition to Leonardo’s oeuvre, is related by Robert Simon, who shepherded the Salvator Mundi on this remarkable journey.
In the central section Martin Kemp focuses on the painting itself—its genesis, iconography, unique visual characteristics, and its dating—as well as the process of the picture’s creation, revealed through preparatory drawings, contemporary and later copies, and technical evidence. The integral correlation of Leonardo’s scientific, intellectual, and artistic pursuits as evidenced in the Salvator Mundi is examined, as is Leonardo’s special ways of evoking a spiritual presence that lay beyond the sensory world that he scrutinized with such intensity.
In the third ‘act’ Margaret Dalivalle takes us to England, where 370 years ago two Salvators credited to Leonardo bore mute witness to some of the most tumultuous events of British history. They were prized possessions of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and their entry into this greatest of all private art collections, the saga following the king’s execution, and their later peregrinations are revealed through a spirited and scrupulous examination of archival material. We believe that the pictures in the royal collections can be identified as the present painting and as an attractive picture of Jesus as a young Salvator, in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, which is now seen as being by a follower. The taste for Leonardo’s works at the Caroline court—involving both autograph and questionable paintings, drawings, and manuscripts—provides the context for this important chapter in the painting’s history.
In an epilogue Martin Kemp brings the reader up to date, treating the critical reception of the painting following its exhibition, its acquisition by successive owners, and recent scholarly discussions.