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Patron Bonus Episode Unlocked - The Curious Case of the Salvator Mundi
26 Plays4 years ago
Josh and M discuss the allegedly lost (but now found) masterwork of Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi, and the various theories as to what it really is, and where it currently might be...
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Transcript
Bonus Episode Introduction
00:00:08
Speaker
It's the podcast's guide to the conspiracy patron bonus episode.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello and welcome to another exciting bonus episode of the podcast's Guide to the Conspiracy.
Interview Parody: Josh as Jesus
00:00:20
Speaker
A bonus episode always starts off with me pretending to interview Josh as someone else. But this week we're going to allow Josh to suggest who he's going to pretend to be and then as you ask him the pertinent questions that is on everybody's hips. Well I think given the subject of today's episode it would only be appropriate for me to pretend to be our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
00:00:44
Speaker
So Jesus, hello and welcome to the show. Do you have any short message you want to give to all humankind at this particular juncture, given the ravages of the virus your father has put upon this land? Just stay inside your house, drink lots of water, that's just good general advice anyway. Please don't nail me too across if you ever see me.
00:01:06
Speaker
Now, you say you drink plenty of water, but I believe that you're more of a wine drinker, is that correct?
Transubstantiation Debate
00:01:12
Speaker
Well, it's the same, isn't it? It's one and the same. The water is the wine in the same way that the wine is my blood or something. Now, I do want to point out that one of the health professionals in the US is warning people to not eat blood at this particular point in time. Are you concerned that maybe the Trump administration is in effect being run by the Antichrist?
00:01:38
Speaker
No, I assume that just means they're not transubstantiationists, surely. They don't believe that the blood literally transforms, the wine literally transforms into the blood of Christ, merely that it's an allegory. And who am I to say that they're wrong? So are you saying the Catholics are right or wrong? Yes. Sorry, maybe I didn't phrase that question particularly well. Are the Catholics right?
00:02:04
Speaker
yes so the protestants are wrong no no they're no they are wrong or no they're not wrong
00:02:16
Speaker
Look, they're all my children. I love them equally, as all parents know.
Humor: Jesus and Childcare Bills
00:02:23
Speaker
It's interesting you bring up that we're all your children, because frankly, you haven't been supporting us particularly well. And I've got a childcare bill somewhere around here, which I really would like to try and get sorted out before the end of this interview. Right. Well, I'm afraid I actually have to ascend to heaven now.
00:02:46
Speaker
We'll talk about that another time. Jesus Christ. Well, there we go. That's your bless for me for the week sorted. That's your sacrilege out of the way.
Salvador Mundi: Creation and Authentication
00:02:58
Speaker
It sure is. Let's keep talking about the Salvador Mundi. So Josh, what is the Salvador Mundi and why is it so exciting?
00:03:07
Speaker
Well, the first half of that question I can answer fairly easily. The Salvatore Monday is a painting. It is a painting of Jesus Christ. If you think of an image of Jesus Christ in sort of classical portraiture, you'd imagine a guy with long flowing brown hair holding one hand up with sort of two of his fingers out funny and possibly holding something in his other hand, maybe a heart, maybe a glass orb.
00:03:33
Speaker
um if that's the image you're thinking of you're basically thinking of the Salvador Mundi or one of its many many imitations now I've seen you say this is a portrait of Jesus because whenever I think of that image I kind of think of a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci do you yes
00:03:51
Speaker
Well, because it's often thought that the Salvador Mundi is in fact a portrait of da Vinci masquerading as Christ. Is it? No, I hadn't got that. I didn't pick up that nugget in my notes. I got a bunch of other stuff, but not that one. It's sometimes referred to as the male Mona Lisa. And of course it is by? It is by Leonardo da Vinci.
00:04:11
Speaker
Probably, we'll see. This is where things get quite complete. Salvador Mundi is a very famous portrait which Leonardo da Vinci is known to have painted, but was taken to be a missing work of the master.
00:04:28
Speaker
and then at some point around about 2005 it suddenly appears and causes a bit of a storm in the old art world doesn't it? Yes so this fellow Robert Simon and a consortium of his business partners he'd somehow
00:04:50
Speaker
this painting had come to his attention and he believed that he could show that it was actually a genuine da Vinci obviously the person who owned it didn't know that the painting they had was it was a genuine because I believe it was an image that was known about in the art world but was considered to be a kind of knockoff piece by an inferior artist so
00:05:12
Speaker
people had gone on, you know, it's a piece of work, it's obviously meant to represent Jesus Christ in that classical Renaissance phase. But you know, it's not an important work. And Simon goes, no, actually, I think this is a lot more important than anyone's given it credit for. So I will happily buy this painting off you for a measly thousand dollars, because I suspect that once I've authenticated it,
00:05:39
Speaker
It's going to be worth a lot more. So part of the problem was that it had been heavily damaged in the past and a bunch of restoration work had been done on it and not to, certainly not to the standards of restoration you'd want on a genuine da Vinci. So they got the painting, they cleaned off all the all the paint that had been added to it to restore it, so you were left with a painting with some fairly large sort of gashes in it. It's painted on a on wood and a
00:06:04
Speaker
I believe the wood had broken at one stage which had left a giant crack down the middle of the painting and there were various other places where the painting had chipped off but in that state they then went and got it authenticated and then had it sort of retouched properly quote-unquote for exhibition. So it was taken to the National Gallery in England, I assume it's the National Gallery,
00:06:30
Speaker
In 2008, we're a panel of experts basically said, yep, this is the real deal. This is actual Salvatore Monday by Leonardo da Vinci. It was shown to the public in the National Gallery from November 2011 to February 2012 before being sold to a private bidder. It's changed hands a few times, gone from sort of rich people to Russian oligarchs.
00:06:59
Speaker
and eventually was sold in 2017 for 400 million US dollars, plus 50 million dollars commission from Christie's, making it the most expensive piece of art to ever have been sold ever. But Josh, four million dollars means it's almost a third of the cost of an Avatar film.
00:07:23
Speaker
I know, exactly. It's a lot of money, surely. And presumably I'd get more pleasure from watching the Salvatore Mundi than I would from re-watching Avatar. Yes, but can you watch the Salvatore Mundi? This is one of many questions around it at the moment. Now there's a recent article in January about a sort of a row over it, and to be honest I had trouble to follow the article.
00:07:49
Speaker
Supposedly, it said the controversy was all about there's an unwritten rule that public collections shouldn't show pictures that are available for sale. Supposedly, the impression I got is that that could be considered as sort of a way of talking up the price.
Art Sale Ethics Debate
00:08:06
Speaker
If you show it off in public, it might sort of affect the valuation or something like that. Well, so basically, the issue is when a painting is up for sale, it has to be advertised.
00:08:18
Speaker
so if the painting is on display in a gallery that effectively acts as free advertising because it makes it very easy for sellers to come and inspect the painting and allow their experts to come and see it as well and so it's taken that you don't really publicly display images which are all these artworks which are up for sale because that kind of contravenes the basic rule that
00:08:44
Speaker
when a piece is on display in a public gallery it's on display in a public gallery it's also not part of a massive advertising campaign to get the price up and up and up so which then led to Robert Simon who was one of the owners at the time go oh no no no it's definitely not for sale except it kind of turns out it probably was it certainly appears that um
00:09:12
Speaker
It certainly looks as though it was for sale immediately before the exhibition and immediately after the exhibition. A fellow called Ben Lewis is about apparently to publish a letter in the London Review of Books releasing what he describes as nuclear proof that the picture had been offered for sale between 2009 and 2010.
00:09:36
Speaker
Maybe it was technically not on sale when it was exhibited but only because they'd taken it off sale and it had been at any point up towards that. So there's this one thing. The suspicion here is it was for sale. There were interested bidders who were going, oh we want that painting. Oh by the way it's not currently for sale
00:10:00
Speaker
because it's on display, but of course we'll get back to you when it comes off display, which then allows the bidders to start outbidding each other in a kind of psychological war. We'll see owner of the paintings going, yep, in eight months time, you're going to get a lot more money for this picture. Yes, so whether or not it was actually on sale during the period it was exhibited as kind of academic, if it was known that it was going to be up for sale again straight away. So that's one thing,
00:10:29
Speaker
But I mean I sort of reading that it all I just sort of seem to be a little bit of a little bit sort of a nicety It's the sort of breach of protocol. It's sort of stuff. That's just not quite cricket but it all seemed a little bit the sort of thing that Very very rich people argue about because they have too much time on their hands, but then there's other stuff that
00:10:50
Speaker
There's a bunch of controversies around it.
Authenticity of Salvador Mundi
00:10:53
Speaker
First of all, as we hinted, there's still a question as to whether or not it's actually a genuine work of Leonardo da Vinci. Yes, so even though the Exposits National Gallery went, yep, we think there's good reason to think this is an authentic da Vinci, a whole bunch of other British art historians have chimed in going, yeah, and here are the reasons why we think it's not.
00:11:17
Speaker
And there's been quite a lot of aji-baji around this, hasn't there? So, I mean, the most recent one, British art historian Charles Hope put an article in the London Review of Books a month or so ago, which he basically, I didn't have time to read through the whole thing. It was quite heavy on detail. He appeared to be more going through the provenance of the painting rather than an artistic examination of it.
00:11:47
Speaker
But the conclusion it would be came to is that it's probably not the Salvador Mundi, that is the work by Leonardo da Vinci that we've heard about in the past. So there's everything that's been replied to by Robert Simon, who I think was defending his own sort of research into its provenance. And then there's been a bit back and forth. But I mean, other people
00:12:11
Speaker
Just sort of reading up on this, whatever view you have on its authenticity, you can find an expert who agrees with you. One, Alan Wintermute, wasn't that the AI and necromancer or something? Yeah, Wintermute is a name from that particular work, isn't it?
00:12:34
Speaker
William Gibson reference there, but anyway, probably not. So he's a senior specialist at Christie's. He calls it the Holy Grail. He says, I'm every major scholar of Leonardo's work accepts this picture and has for the past decade.
00:12:49
Speaker
says obviously it's not in flawless condition, it's 500 years old, but absolutely has the presence and condition of a true Leonardo. Now, of course, this gets rather awkward here because a lot of the people who go, it's not a true Da Vinci piece, are also going, it was probably produced by artists who worked in Da Vinci's studio. So it's known that Da Vinci had a studio, Da Vinci had students, Da Vinci used those students to either start paintings that Da Vinci would finish,
00:13:18
Speaker
or to finish paintings that da Vinci would start and he would teach them their technique so some of the students seem to have that kind of da Vinci touch where their works are very similar to the master and some of the students develop their own styles and forms but have recognisable da Vinci like ways of doing things so stippling of paint the way ears are drawn and the like
00:13:41
Speaker
And most of the people who are going sort of true Da Vinci are likely to go, but it was produced by one of his students, which is why it's easy to think it is a Da Vinci, especially since some elements of the painting might have been painted by Da Vinci in the first place. He just wasn't the person who did the majority of the work in their view.
00:14:05
Speaker
Yeah, so it's from his, as you say, they'll say it's from Da Vinci's workshop. And then again, there's sort of a range of, it was done by one of his students, or it was done a bit by him and a bit by one of his students, or it was done a lot by him and a bit, you know, how much of it he, how much of his hand is in it.
00:14:27
Speaker
And here is where you get lots of experts sort of pointing at various bits of it and saying, oh, no, this bit here, only Leonardo da Vinci could paint this way. No one else could have done it. And then other people say, this bit here, Leonardo da Vinci would never have done something like that. And maybe they're both right. Maybe that's because it was by da Vinci and one of his students or assistants.
00:14:49
Speaker
But that, in several senses of the word, is all academic because nobody's actually heard of the Salvador Mundi for a couple of years now, I think.
Where is Salvador Mundi Now?
00:15:01
Speaker
Yes, as far as most people are aware, it's probably on a yacht, and that yacht probably belongs to a Saudi royal. Good old Mohammed bin Salman, Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who we've been talking about recently in his connection to the death of Jamal Khashoggi. Yes, so the $450 million fee was paid by another Saudi royal, Prince Badr bin Abdullah,
00:15:31
Speaker
who it seems was probably acting as a proxy for Mohammed bin Salman. Especially since a few months after the sale of the artwork to this particular Prince, he was made Saudi Arabia's first ever Minister of Culture by Mohammed bin Salman. Yes, so there definitely seems to be a bit of the old quid pro quo there. So it was
00:15:56
Speaker
Initially the buyer was anonymous and then it came out that it was going to be unveiled in the Louvre Abu Dhabi. Which is one of those things where I wasn't aware the Louvre had franchises but apparently it does. It does and there's one in Abu Dhabi.
00:16:13
Speaker
And so, yeah, Mohammed bin Salman is buddies with Mohammed bin Zayed, who is the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. So it seemed like he had got his relation, his fellow Saudi royal, to buy the painting on his behalf.
00:16:31
Speaker
and then lend it to his buddy to exhibit in the Louvre, that was supposed to happen. It was going to be unveiled in 2018 but then its unveiling was cancelled and they never really gave a reason why and they haven't really said when we might be going to see it.
00:16:47
Speaker
And this is quite fascinating because this is the world's most expensive privately owned painting. So there are other paintings which are considered to be worth more. So the Mona Lisa is considered to be worth a lot more than the Salvador Mundi, but it's owned by a public gallery and thus isn't for sale. This is a Los Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, which is in private hands.
00:17:15
Speaker
And so there is this question of why isn't it on display? And one of the rationales behind it is that maybe the new owners who have just spent $450 million on a piece of plywood with paint put upon it might now suspect that maybe the critics are right and it's not an authentic Leonardo da Vinci after all.
Public Display and Authenticity Issues
00:17:44
Speaker
and thus they don't want to display it publicly in case other people also come to that realisation as well. Yeah, there's been a bit of speculation. So supposedly it's currently being stored slash displayed. It is apparently on a luxury yacht owned by Mohammed bin Salman.
00:18:05
Speaker
When I think about keeping my artistic masterpieces, I think keeping them floating on a body of water is, of course, the best way to keep them off of them. Well, it's oil-based paint. Oil floats on water, surely. What could be safer? But yes, so there's been suggestion that
00:18:25
Speaker
there's a new Saudi cultural center is apparently under construction. And so one story is that it's being kept by Mohammed bin Salman awaiting. So he's not going to show it in Abu Dhabi anymore. He's going to show it in Saudi Arabia itself in this new cultural center, their building. Some people have suggested maybe he's richer than God and he's just decided he wants to keep it.
00:18:48
Speaker
He paid for it. He's just going to keep it himself. That's one suggestion. And then, yes, some people have said it with the whole questions around its authenticity and whether it's really the painting they say it is and whether it's really Da Vinci or one of the students or who knows what, maybe they have reason to think that it's less than authentic.
00:19:06
Speaker
and that's the reason why they're keeping it under abs. But for now all we know is the Salvage or Mundi, the most expensive privately owned painting in the world, is gone and nobody's a hundred percent certain where it is.
00:19:20
Speaker
which is quite the fascinating little mystery. It sure is, yeah. Yeah, I think I preferred the intrigue of the stolen papyrus story from last month, but as far as mysteries in the art world go, it is quite a good one.
00:19:37
Speaker
And unfortunately, we've kind of run out of those particular stories.
Listener Involvement: Art Conspiracies
00:19:40
Speaker
So next month, there will obviously be a bog standard conspiracy theory tales. We'll find something unsure. I'm sure we will. Unless you happen to know any conspiracy theories about the art world and want us to talk about them, then by all means.
00:19:55
Speaker
I thought you were going to bust into a kind of crime busters thing. If you've got information about what's been happening with the Salvador Mundi, we've got a private line can call on 0800 5858 5858 58 where your call will be taken anonymously by a naked person called Jack.
00:20:15
Speaker
This will make it jack. This is actually the time of one of my children. I make it a bit generic. And they will take your call and then they will pass an invasion on to us and we'll get to the bottom of it. So the number again 0800 58 58 58 58 58.
00:20:34
Speaker
corner. Now while that is a lie, you can get in touch with us on more traditional means if there's anything in the art world or anything else really that
Thanks and Future Episodes
00:20:43
Speaker
you'd like to talk about. You're our patrons, you give us money, you get to tell us what to do quite frankly. And you've got a Discord channel which Josh is definitely going to join, otherwise it's just embarrassing. Any minute now, I'm sure it'll happen, maybe tomorrow.
00:20:58
Speaker
Yes, so that's all we had to talk about in this bonus episode this week, so you guys get the first crack at it and we'll put it online in another week or so, so that the housebound self-isolators can have something else to listen to as well.
00:21:15
Speaker
And meanwhile we'll see you next week for I guess a regular news update after whatever we end up talking about in next week's proper episode. And I'm sure next week's news update will not at all be COVID-19 based. We'll try to keep some variety in there but
00:21:33
Speaker
Who is the only news around at the moment? Yeah, I mean, I've been paying more attention to the news than I have in quite a long time. I almost almost actually watched the news on television. But oh, no, no, no, you didn't. I instead watched a live broadcast on a on the radio New Zealand website. So that's almost the same thing, but not quite.
00:21:59
Speaker
I'm shocked, absolutely shocked. So I think we're done for now so we will bid you goodbye and obviously say thank you again as we always do given that you are our favorite people in the entire world and you keep us solvent and apart from that just goodbye.