Russian billionaire sold the most expensive painting in the world

Photo: Twitter Christie's

Belonging to the Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, Leonardo da Vinci's painting “The Savior of the World”, put up for auction Christie's in New York, went under the hammer for $ 450,3 million. This amount was a record for ever put up for auction works of art. Buyer's name is unknown.

The painting "Savior of the World" dates back to about 1500 year. For a long time, the original version of the canvas was considered lost, and the existing one was attributed to one of da Vinci's students: allegedly he reproduced the master's work. At the start of 2000's art dealers, Warren Adelson, Alexander Parish and Robert Simon purchased the painting for just $ 10 thousands.

Then, when da Vinci’s authorship was confirmed, the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier bought the painting for $ 80 million. In 2013, he resold the canvas to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, who paid $ 127,5 million for it.

Subsequently Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of fraud and went to court. According to the billionaire, Bouvier sold him paintings at an inflated price, because of which he had to overpay for them several hundred million dollars. On these charges, law enforcement officers even detained the Bouvier, but he was released on bail of 10 million euros.

Before bidding Christie's experts estimated the Savior of the World at $ 100 million. Prior to this transaction, the most expensive painting sold during a public auction was Pablo Picasso's “Algerian Women” (1955): she went under the hammer in May 2015 for $ 179,4 million.

Note that in the 2017 year in the ranking Forbes “The 200 richest businessmen in Russia” Rybolovlev took 15th place, the publication estimated his fortune at $7,3 billion. Until 2010, he was the actual owner of Uralkali. Currently owns the Monaco football club and controls the largest bank in Cyprus Bank of Cyprus.

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