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The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the Worldâ€™s Most Expensive Painting

By (author) Ben Lewis, Read by Peter Noble

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In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries. In 2017, Leonardo da Vinciâ€™s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is â€˜the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever livedâ€™. Its dazzling price also makes it the worldâ€™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 Leonardoâ€™s assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself? In November 2017, Christieâ€™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. Lewis takes us to Leonardoâ€™s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorerâ€™s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where weâ€™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.

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