Louvre Abu Dhabi to be Home to World’s Most Expensive Painting
- Louvre Abu Dhabi announced that the most expensive painting in the world was coming to Abu Dhabi in a tweet on Wednesday, 6th December 2017
- Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi is the famed painting, which was sold in November 2017 for USD 450 million, smashing all previous records for artworks sold at auction
- The Salvator Mundi painting dates from around 1500 and shows Christ dressed in Renaissance-style robes, his right hand raised in blessing as his left hand holds a crystal sphere
- The buyer of the painting was revealed to be Saudi prince Bader bin Abdullah Al Saud, who took part in the Christie’s auction for the painting via telephone
- Louvre Abu Dhabi is part of a thirty-year agreement between the city of Abu Dhabi and the French government, taking its name from the original Louvre in Paris
- Louvre Abu Dhabi officially opened its doors to the public on 11th November 2017
- The Salvator Mundi painting is one of fewer than 20 paintings by da Vinci known to exist and the only one in private hands
- Salvator Mundi was exhibited in Hong Kong, San Francisco, London and New York before the sale by Christie’s auction house
- The highest known sale price for any artwork before Salvator Mundi had been USD 300 million for Willem de Kooning’s painting Interchange, sold in September 2015
