According to a DMA spokesperson, Leonardo da Vinci’s Christ as Salvator Mundi, c. 1499 is currently at the Dallas Museum of Art as curators and administrators mull over the possibility of dropping a cool $200 million on the work of art. The piece was recently re-attributed to the Renaissance artist, and if the DMA purchased the work, it would make it one of only two da Vinci’s on view in the United States. Via Art In America:
But Anderson (who, via the museum’s communications department, declined to comment for this article) evidently sees the appeal of “a destination painting”—a phrase recently applied to Edvard Munch’s The Scream (1895), which brought $119.9 million at a Sotheby’s auction in May—one that would in itself draw crowds to a museum.
The work is priced in the range of $200 million, according to three sources with knowledge of the situation. Such a high-ticket item would likely require pooled donations from a number of museum benefactors.
At present, only one painting by Leonardo is on public view in the United States: Ginevra de’ Benci(1474/78), also on panel, is in the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C.
