AI study attributes 450-million-dollar Salvator Mundi to Leonardo's pupil
Brazilian model gives Boltraffio 81 percent probability without explaining how, a student work would be worth one hundredth of what the prince paid
Images
Leonardo da Vinci soll den „Salvator Mundi“ um 1500 gemalt haben. 2005 kaufte ein New Yorker Kunsthändler das ramponierte Bild bei einer Provinzauktion für 1175 DollarFoto: Leonardeschi/Wikipedia
Foto: Leonardeschi/Wikipedia
Die Walnussholztafel (66 × 46 cm) im gereinigten Zustand. Restauratorin Dianne Modestini entfernte spätere Retuschen und malte große Teile neuFoto: Photograph Courtesy Dianne Modes/Wikipedia
Foto: Photograph Courtesy Dianne Modes/Wikipedia
A previously unknown analysis built on artificial intelligence assigns the Salvator Mundi to Leonardo da Vinci's student Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio with 81 percent probability. The walnut panel was sold at auction in 2017 as a Leonardo for 450 million dollars, to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to Bild — a record sum for a painting. The study is circulating through the art portal Martin Cid, and nobody has explained how the model reached its result.
The painting's career explains the stakes. In 2005 a New York art dealer bought the damaged panel at a provincial auction for 1,175 dollars. Restorer Dianne Modestini later stripped off old retouchings and repainted large parts of the picture — a heavily restored panel gives both connoisseurs and algorithms less surface to argue from. The panel is attributed to Leonardo around 1500, and it rose from 1,175 dollars to 450 million in twelve years.
The claim itself is thin in provenance. The Brazilian system, named Luminari, produced its figure by a method that has not been disclosed. Wolfgang Reuter, an AI entrepreneur associated with Art Intelligence, told Bild that a probability of 81 percent is in his eyes no proof — at best an indication. Frank Zöllner, an art historian and Leonardo specialist, said a serious AI analysis would certainly be a help, but it cannot solve all attribution problems: the discussion around the Salvator continues.
That discussion is what the art market is built on. The same wooden panel is worth half a billion dollars or a few million depending on whose hand held the brush, and the people who certify the hand have careers built on their eye. An unexplained machine probability does not settle the matter; it prices the alternative at about one hundredth of the sale.
Since the New York auction the painting has been hidden from the public. It is intended for the planned Museum for World Cultures in Riyadh, billed as the 'Mona Lisa of the desert'. Whichever name ends up on the label, the difference between them — roughly 99 percent of the purchase price — will not be visible on the wall.