A portrait of Jesus by Leonardo da Vinci has sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million on Wednesday more than double the old price for any work of art at auction.

“Salvator Mundi,” an ethereal portrait of Jesus Christ which dates to about 1500, the last privately owned Leonardo da Vinci painting,

Leonardo da Vinci’s portrait of Christ, “Salvator Mundi”, sold for a record-smashing $450.3 million (N162 billion) on Wednesday at Christie‘s, more than double the old price for any work of art at auction.
The painting, only recently rediscovered, was the last da Vinci left in private hands and fetched more than four times Christie‘s’ pre-sale estimate of about $100 million.
It beat a record set in May 2015 by Pablo Picasso’s “Les Femmes D‘Alger,” which sold for $179.4 million, and constituted more than half the sale’s total of $785.9 million, which came in well above the roughly $450 million pre-sale estimate.
“Salvator Mundi” (Savior of the World) was purchased by an unidentified buyer bidding via telephone after a protracted contest of nearly 20 minutes at the New York auction house.
With at least six bidders and increments coming in at more than 15 million, sustained whoops and cheers broke out in the packed salesroom as the hammer came down.....

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