Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

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Book Description
The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543296
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 504

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts

Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543288
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 418

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Book Description
The Salvator Mundi is the first Leonardo painting to be discovered for over a century. Following its re-emergence, it played a leading role in the landmark Leonardo exhibition at the National Gallery in London in 2011, after which it was purchased by a Russian oligarch. In 2017 it was auctioned by Christie's in New York, fetching the world record price of $450m, and now forms part of the collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi. The Salvator Mundi may be seen as the devotional counterpart to the Mona Lisa, having an extraordinary, communicative presence. The artist has reformed the very traditional subject matter in a number of ways. The elusiveness of Christ's expression suggests his spiritual origins beyond the world of the senses. The traditional sphere of the earth has been transformed into a rock-crystal orb and signifies a crystalline sphere of the heavens. In addition to its spiritual dimension, the image exploits Leonardo's optical knowledge and his growing sense of the illusiveness of seeing. Only the blessing hand is in reasonably sharp focus, with his features softly veiled. The scintillating curls of his hair are characterised in line with his theory that the physics of the curling of hair is analogous to vortex motion in water. This book looks at evidence of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi in the collections of Charles I and Charles II. It explores the appraisal of works by Leonardo at the Stuart courts, and proposes that how works attributed to Leonardo were first encountered and understood in seventeenth-century Britain would shape the wider evolution of Leonardo as a cultural icon. This volume gives a dramatic first-hand account of the modern-day discovery of the painting, from its purchase in a minor New Orleans auction house, to the cleaning of the picture that would disclose it as Leonardo's startling original, and the research processes that would uncover illustrious and obscure former owners. The book presents the definitive study of the new masterpiece.

The Last Leonardo

The Last Leonardo PDF Author: Ben Lewis
Publisher: Ballantine Books
ISBN: 1984819267
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings, and sheikhs. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; to the galleries, salerooms, and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth. Praise for The Last Leonardo “The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian “As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci PDF Author: Luke Syson
Publisher: National Gallery London
ISBN:
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
A new examination of Leonardo's career that illuminates his time as court painter to the Duke of Milan, an experience that fundamentally changed his outlook and his legacy

Caravaggio and Pictorial Narrative

Caravaggio and Pictorial Narrative PDF Author: Lorenzo Pericolo
Publisher: Harvey Miller
ISBN: 9781905375486
Category : Painters
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
HMSBA is Harvey Miller Studies in Baroque Art.

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198749902
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The true story of the Mona Lisa - the people behind it, how Leonardo painted it and what it meant to him, and its fortunes in the centuries since. Read this book and the world's most famous image will never look the same again.

Living with Leonardo: Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond

Living with Leonardo: Fifty Years of Sanity and Insanity in the Art World and Beyond PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
ISBN: 0500774234
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Approaching the 500th anniversary of Leonardo’s death, the world- renowned da Vinci expert recounts his fifty- year journey with the work of the world’s most famous artist A personal memoir interwoven with original research, Living with Leonardo takes us deep inside Leonardo da Vinci scholar Martin Kemp’s lifelong passion for the genius who has helped define our culture. Each chapter considers a specific work as Kemp offers insight into his encounters with academics, collectors, curators, devious dealers, auctioneers, and authors— as well as how he has grappled with legions of “Leonardo loonies,” treaded vested interests in academia and museums, and fended off fusillades of non- Leonardos. Kemp explains his thinking on the Last Supper and the Mona Lisa, retells his part in the identification of the stolen Buccleuch Madonna, and explains his involvement on the two major Leonardo discoveries of the last 100 years: La Bella Principessa and Salvator Mundi. His engaging narrative elucidates the issues surrounding attribution,the scientific analyses that support experts’ interpretations, and the continuing importance of connoisseurship. Illustrated with the works being discussed, Living with Leonardo explores the artist’s genius from every angle, including technical analysis and the pop culture works he inspired, such as The Da Vinci Code, and his enduring influence 500 years after his death.

Selling Leonardo

Selling Leonardo PDF Author: Alex LaFollette
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1666769150
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
The infamous Salvator Mundi painting sold in 2017 for $450.3 million, garnering worldwide attention. News stories had everyone thinking that this painting was made by the legendary Renaissance artist, Leonardo da Vinci. However, something major was left out of those headlines. Many da Vinci experts did not believe that he created the work. Several years after the notorious sale, an unknown American artist was presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. Every year, thousands of artists from around the world apply to be an official Copyist at the Louvre Museum in Paris. While only a few are selected, this artist was somehow chosen for the program. As he prepared for his art to be shown in the Louvre, he came across the many people involved with the Salvator Mundi, exposing a dark mystery across continents. Selling Leonardo is an adventurous true story that lifts the curtain of the secretive, high-stakes art world.

The Leonardos and the Forgotten Arab Polymath, Zoroastro

The Leonardos and the Forgotten Arab Polymath, Zoroastro PDF Author: Susan Audrey Grundy
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1036412768
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
This book recovers the lives of four men masked behind one legend. Reinterpreting recently rediscovered documents shows a Tuscan artist Leonardo da Vinci was banished from Florence around 1477, when at the same moment another Leonardo arrived from the East, an Ottoman agent from Genoese Caffa in the Black Sea. This Leonardo was a military engineer, who began writing technical notes backward in a flourishing Italian script. In Florence, around 1500, he met the alchemist and polymath Zoroastro, who collaborated in producing the scientific Notebooks. However, by the mid-sixteenth century, all memory of Zoroastro had been erased, and the two Leonardos had been conflated into one identity. Crucially, an archived document, rediscovered around 2021, proved that the Tuscan painter Leonardo da Vinci died in 1499. This information leads to the recovery of the artist who really painted the Mona Lisa, Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio.

Christ to Coke

Christ to Coke PDF Author: Martin Kemp
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199581118
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 393

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Book Description
The author looks at how an image becomes iconic through eleven universally recognized images, both historical and contemporary. He examines the images such as Christ's face, the cross, the heart-shape (as in "I heart New York"), and the famous photograph of the napalmed girl in Vietnam. Other modern icons come from politics, such as the American flag, from business, led by the Coca-Cola bottle, and from science, the double helix of DNA and Einstein's equation E=mc2.