The Lost Leonardo
This splendid documentary examines the journey of a purported lost masterpiece, but is also a whodunit about the shadowy hidden world that is international art dealing.
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The world of high art is alien to most of us, in which a painting or sculpture is judged less by its ability to move our hearts than the value experts insist clings to it because of who made it, or where, or when. A dreary painting with solid provenance (proof of authenticity) by a master can sell for tens of millions of dollars, while something in the window of a small-town shop that infallibly makes passersby stop and gape is deemed worthless.
"The Lost Leonardo," the fascinating new film directed by Andreas Koefoed, pierces this veiled realm where art, money and power intertwine in labyrinthine patterns even those who dwell in it don't fully understand. It's the best documentary I've seen this year.
It's the story not just of a painting that was found and attributed as a lost work of Leonardo da Vinci a dozen years ago and has successively sold to ever-higher bidders, eventually setting a record in 2017 for $450 million -- the highest price ever paid for a work of art.
The documentary delves deeper than the debates about the authenticity of the work in question and gets at the hidden infrastructure behind the art world, where billionaires buy the top pieces and then hide them away in tax-free havens. Un-looked upon by any, these beautiful objects exist as the ultimate mobile form of collateral.
As one Russian tycoon says, if they things ever go south for him he can simply load his paintings on a plane and fly away.
I am reminded of another excellent documentary about a lost master work, "Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?", in which a piece purportedly by the spatter-paint icon turns up. Because the owner is a working-class woman unfamiliar with the ways of art dealing, she spends years trying unsuccessfully to have it authenticated and sold at a high price. She, and her painting, are rejected because they are not part of this world.
In contrast, the Salvator Mundi moves in the right circles and hence rides a much straighter line to the top.
Salvator Mundi is Latin for "Savior of the World," and refers to a specific, common representation in art of Jesus giving a blessing with his right hand while holding an orb in the left. As the prospects for the painting rose, it became known as "the" Salvator Mundi.
A pair of dealers specializing in finding low-price gems, Alexander Parrish and Robert Simon, buy it from the estate of a Baton Rouge businessman for $1,125. It has been badly overpainted in a crude restoration effort that makes it look like a poor copy.
They brought it to Dianne Dwyer Modestini, a respected New York art restorer, to oversee the fix. She removed the overpaint and what lay underneath was badly damaged, split by a worm-infested backing, and gloomy.
But it also showed distinctive traits of Leonardo's style that matched some authenticated sketches he had done of the figure's cloth and hair. She also found a pentimento, or correction, the artist had made where they repositioned the thumb. Since a fake or copy wouldn't have included this mistake, it convinced her it was a genuine Leonardo. Modestini lovingly restored it to the best approximation of its original glory.
From there, the film traces the painting's odd and dispiriting journey. It was displayed at the National Gallery in London after several Leonardo experts gave their informal blessing. After that, things get murkier as the heaviest hitters joined the fray.
The owners sought to sell it to a museum for public display, but none could raise the $200 million asking price. Eventually it was sold to a Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, for $127.5 million. A mining baron, Rybolovlev was buying up expensive art higgledy-piggledy in case Vladimir Putin or international finance monitors ever came after him (which they eventually did).
Except that a French middleman, Yves Bouvier, bought the painting for $83 million from the Americans, then sold it to the Russian later the same day, pocketing the difference. Bouvier appears in interviews and is gleefully frank about cheating the buyer, though he sees at is simply good negotiating -- even bringing in a poker expert to read the room.
It turns out Bouvier's real business is "freeports" -- shadowy storage facilities on the grounds of major airports where billions of dollars in art and other valuables are stored and sold. Because they are considered international duty-free zones, these transactions are not subject to normal taxation. So the Salvator Mundi and countless other masterworks sit in a vault, used as collateral for favorable loans and such.
Eventually Rybolovlev had to cashier his collection, and the painting became the center of a major marketing campaign by Christie's auction house to garner the maximum price. They dubbed it "The Last Leonardo" or the "Male Mona Lisa." It was purchased by a secret buyer who was eventually revealed to be the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, who wants to turn his nation into a cultural tourist destination.
For the past four years, the whereabouts of the Salvator Mundi have remained a mystery. Reputedly is is floating on the prince's yacht. It was supposed to be included in a major Leonardo exhibition at the Louvre celebrating the artist's birthday, but was pulled at the last minute. This documentary reveals the reason, which I'll leave to you to discover.
"The Lost Leonardo" is the best kind of documentary filmmaking. It takes you into a community that is unfamiliar and strange, possibly even laughable, and lets you see why the denizens take it so seriously. It also operates as an international whodunit, pursuing the truth of not only the painting's veracity but the real reasons why some works sell for such ridiculous figures. (Hint: it's not art appreciation.)
The painting itself? The best case the film suggests at is that it is indeed a Leonardo work, though probably he only contributed portions himself while his workshop of students did the rest. It has undergone major restorations at least twice now, and as one heckler accuses it's now 85% Dianne Dwyer Modestini, not da Vinci.
Modestini is the most empathetic and compelling figure in the film, which interviews dozens of people and describes the actions of even more. She was genuinely hurt when people thought she took part in a concerted effort to pull a fast one on the art world, including assertions she had an ownership stake in the Mundi. (She did not, though admits she was paid handsomely for her restoration.)
She simply wanted the world to know about an amazing discovery, and that it be seen and appreciated by the public. Alas, it seems the ability of art to elevate the human spirit is no match for its debasement through greed and egotism.