Salvator Mundi

A painting purportedly by Leonardo Da Vinci himself is discovered at a little-known auction house in New Orleans in 2005; a decade later, it fetches the highest price for a work of art ever sold at auction.

Sources:
The Lost Leonardo
Savior For Sale
https://therenaissanceworkshop.com/leonardo-da-vinci/
https://www.mos.org/leonardo/biography.html
https://www.rct.uk/collection/912525/the-drapery-of-a-chest-and-sleeve
https://www.rct.uk/collection/912524/the-drapery-of-a-sleeve
https://web.archive.org/web/20200524085434/https://www.history.com/news/how-a-priceless-da-vinci-masterwork-disappeared-from-view-for-centuries
https://salvatormundirevisited.com/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/09/lost-leonardo-da-vinci-film-solved-mystery-worlds-most-expensive-painting-salvator-mundi
https://apnews.com/general-news-91be03753b7d4dbbacfc4bb0d1dcca3d
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/mideast/how-saudi-royal-crushed-his-rivals-shakedown-ritz-carlton-n930396
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/arts/design/salvator-mundi-louvre-abu-dhabi.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/world/middleeast/saudi-crown-prince-salvator-mundi.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsUFvwgvCo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P64rDJkX4HY
https://artwatch.org.uk/two-developments-in-the-no-show-louvre-abu-dhabi-leonardo-salvator-mundi-saga/
https://brunelleschi.imss.fi.it/menteleonardo/emdl.asp

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Folks, it's a hug, No, I haven't seen when us.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
To see the Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the
lies we wish were.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
True and truths that sound like lies.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm the ghost of Danish Wartz and.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show, Dana.
What do you know about the painting known as the
Salvator Mondie?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I can sort of picture it in my mind's eye.
I've like seen it and I it was like maybe
by Leonardo da Vinci and it sold for a lot
of money. Yep. I think that's the extent of what
I know about it.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Those are the main things. Those are the main thing.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Pot episode over.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Well, yeah, sure, I mean those are the main things.
You're not wrong. I will say this is a to me,
very delightful story with a lot of twists and turns.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
It does not have I just want to say this,
like for the listener, it does not have one big
reveal at the end. So if you're like, please don't
listen to this episode like holding your breath waiting for
the moment when I tell you, and it was a dad,
because like, no, it is like a It is a

(01:24):
story with hoaxism. It is a story with hoaxification. It
is a story with hoaxicity around it. But it is
not the story of like one mastermind's long running hoax.
It's just like a lot of little hoaxisms in the air,
paxisms in the air, flim flammery, scamity, happening in multiple

(01:46):
directions over the course of a number of years.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
I love it. It's a multi dimensional hoax.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It's a multi dimensional hoax that I think will give
us a lot to talk about. But yeah, I just
didn't want I didn't want anyone to be disappointed going
into this thinking like when was the big twist.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
That's a very generous disclaimer.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, okay, So we begin in old times, da Vinci times,
da Vinci times. We're talking the last quarter of the
fifteenth century and the first quarter of the sixteenth century,
mostly in Florence. Leonardo da Vinci. He's a painter. He's
also an inventor, a mathematician, a scientist. Famously drew Barrymore's

(02:25):
fairy godfather in the film Ever After, which of course
I believe is a documentary. A documentary, yeah, a historical object.
We think of artists as being like very solitary, like
you know, girl with a pearl ear ring, or like
some guy you know in his room just painting by himself.
But that was not the case for da Vinci. He

(02:47):
was famous in his own time, and he was very revered,
and he had a studio, he had assistants, he had students,
and they were known as the Leonardeschi or the Nordeski.
I guess, however you pronounced buscemi is how you should
pronounce this word.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, if we go out to dinner, I'll be absolutely insufferable,
is what the notice.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
One of them might have been his lover, a guy
named Sali, who was sort of his protege and inherited
everything after da Vinci's death.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
You know, his like male roommate, his like hot young
male roommate.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Yeah, and they were roommates, their roommates there, roommates.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
And he's like, is it this Like I kind of
remember in a book I read like there was one
like blonde guy that he would like paint into his portraits.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I think that's him, Like, yeah, just you know
how you do for your friend his much younger friend,
who neither of them ever had a girlfriend so far.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, and they're painting each other all the time.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
So in this workshop, they're making a lot of art
and it was not like one I mean, they weren't
using canvas at the time, but it was not like
one guy, one canvas. Yeah, it would be you know,
Da Vinci might do a sketch and then say, okay,
everybody do a painting based on this sketch, and we'll
sell all these paintings. Or he might do a sketch

(04:01):
and say, okay, you guys paint the background and then
I'm going to come in and paint the figures.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
So like James Patterson writing a book.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yes, exactly, like James Patterson writing a book, honest. Yeah,
or like how they finished the uh uh what you
might call it, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books based
on like the outlines. Yeah, so authorship is already sort
of murky. But this is not like a plagiarism thing.
This is a known thing happening in Florence. This is

(04:32):
they're not trying to get one over on their patrons
doing this.

Speaker 1 (04:35):
And it also feels like sometimes people have a misunderstanding
of what artists were back then, like they were providing
a service. Like they were.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Providing a service. And also like even today, art comes
very often comes out of a workshop. Yeah, and like
an artist might not have you know, when you look
at these like big artworks that are in museums, like
the Chris or whatever his name is, Like he didn't
hand put all those flags in by himself. Like I

(05:05):
people have artists work. Artists have people working for that.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
I read the memoir written by the wife of the
artist Tom Sacks. He has a whole workshop.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, all of which is to say, there are a
number of works coming out of the da Vinci workshop
that da Vinci himself has only contributed to in the
conception of them, or perhaps doing touch ups in like
movie parlance. Maybe he was like the executive producer.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah, And I'm sure it drives historians crazy because it's
like we don't know if this is one that he
just like thought of the idea of, or if this
is like I'll do the figures exactly.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
And today only ones that are called actually autographs, which
is by master's own hand, are really like worth very much,
and there aren't very many of them.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
I'm gonna guess eight eleven.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
More fifteen, all right, there are fifteen more or less
confirmed da Vinci paintings, and there's a lot more da
Vinci's stuff out there. He had a lot of notebooks
and drawings, and he also maybe had like raging adhd
because there's a lot of like half finished works and
plans for stuff that he never got around to making,
which fair enough can go off relatable. And in the

(06:23):
second half of his career sort of the end of
his life, around the time that he's painting the Mona,
Lisa heard of it, heard of it, which took him
like over ten years, which I didn't realize. There is
reason to believe for reasons that are honestly kind of boring,
but which we can get into, that he painted a
Salvador Mondi, which, much like Madonna and Child is like

(06:46):
a type of art. Yeah, so if you didn't grow
up studying Catholic art, which we didn't, where he did not,
a Salvador Mundy, which is I think a Latin for
Savior of the World, is an art work that depicts
Jesus with one hand raised in blessing and the other

(07:09):
holding some kind of orb representing the world, and you
can have like a figurine that is this like yes, yes, yes,
or you can have a painting. And there are a
bunch of this iconography that comes out of the da
Vinci workshop that are by all of his sort of

(07:30):
like proteges and assistants that have Jesus basically wearing like
the same outfit. And there is a engraving made about
one hundred years after Da Vinci's death by a guy
named Wincessless Holler that purports to be an engraving made
of the original that was painted by Da Vinci. So

(07:53):
there's a lot of scholarship that says, maybe there's an
original da Vinci painting somewhere in the world.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Sure, because so many of his workshop people were copying
something presumably.

Speaker 2 (08:02):
Yes, copying something that he did. But it's also possible
that he just like and there are studies like sketches
that he made sort of in preparation to maybe paint
one of these things. But it's also possible that he
just made like a sketch that then everybody copied, or
some other secret third thing. We don't know for sure. Yeah,
so that is just information background on da Vinci. He

(08:26):
died in fifteen nineteen. Okay, cut to five hundred years
later in New Orleans. A businessman dies and an auction
house takes a look at his art collection that he
had inherited from his aunt, and they say, okay, great,
here's all the stuff that we will take. And we
don't want that ugly Jesus painting that's in your hallway. Goodbye.

(08:48):
And so the Jesus painting and all his other random
paintings goes to like the local antique store and they
just throw it up online, like just for auction for
not very much money.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
And it's not a very good looking painting. It's been
like varnished and painted over a bunch. It does not
look good.

Speaker 1 (09:05):
So it looks like super muddy, yeah, and just kind
of like blotchy.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
You can look it up. I'm not even going to
show it as part of our conversation, like not a
cool looking painting. But Robert Simon and Alexander Parrish, who
are both sort of medium time art dealers, see it
for sale online and they're like, this painting is ugly
and it's been overpainted, but it's kind of interesting. It

(09:30):
looks like one of those Salvador mundy copies that were
so popular in fifteen hundred Italy, Like it's like really cheap,
so let's just buy it. It's a little bit unclear
how much they paid for it, because they then say
that they paid like twelve hundred bucks for it, but
then other sources say that they paid under ten thousand

(09:51):
for it, which seems like a really.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Weird Like I guess, technically.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, like that's not that is under ten thousand, but that.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Even seems expensive for like a random auction website. But
I guess if it's like a nice old painting, yeah,
I don't really know.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
But then and they also don't really get into this,
but they also might have had other people helping them
buy it besides the two of them. But they're gonna
need to raise some more money anyway, because they're about
to hire an art restorer. So already the waters are
about to get murky on exactly where the money is
coming from around this painting. But in any case, they

(10:30):
in a rather casual, not making a big deal way,
they buy it, and they basically just get it like
FedEx to New York, and they hand it over to
a woman named Diane Modestini and Modestini is a very
well respected art restorer. She lives in New York with
her husband, who is also a very well respected art restorer.
He's a bit older than her. He's ninety eight, and

(10:52):
oh the shit, I think she's in her maybe twenties. No,
she's like her sixties at that point, maybe in her
seventies now. But he's very old and he's in very
ill health.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Well he's ninety eight, yes.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
I mean, I don't know. Dick Van Dyke's like fucking balls.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
Let's he's tap dancing on tables and stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
So she cleans up the painting a little bit and
she shows it to her husband, and her husband's like,
I don't know who did this painting, but there's something
about this painting.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oh so he's ninety eight, but he's still on the ball.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
Well this is the thing. Not much, but this painting
like awakens something in him. He's like, I don't have
reactions to a lot of paintings, but I have got
I got I got some feeling about this painting.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Hmmm.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
I'm gonna pause here for just a minute to talk
about a couple things that are going on right before
and right after the moment that we're in. Okay, so
we're in two thousand and five. In two thousand and three,
the book The da Vinci Code comes out. Yes, so
Da Vinci already basically the most famous painter in the
world after The Da Vinci Code, I would say, inarguably

(11:58):
the most famous painter in the world. Like, no one's
hunting for codes in Michaelangelo.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
That's not true because really have you read from the
mixed up files of Missus Beazoli Frank Weiler? Well, yes,
people are looking for.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
But that's just one thing.

Speaker 1 (12:13):
Take it back Lesslie Logan. Okay, Michael he's he's a
top Okay, he's a top three code hunting code hunting artist.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
Okay, take it back and take it back and take
it back. But I will say in two thousand and five,
Da Vinci still people are. People have Da Vinci on
the break.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, mixed up files is old news. Da Vinci Code
is the hot young thing.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Da Vinci Code is big. In two thousand and six,
the movie The DaVinci Code is about to come out. Yeah,
so people are really feeling Da Vinci fever has gripped
the nation. DaVinci mania.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
And also shortly after all of this is happening, mister
Modestini does die ow rip rip. So this is pure speculation,
but I think it is notable to keep in mind
going forward. This painting is one of the last that
the Modestinis look at together, and after they look at it,

(13:09):
Diane is sitting in her home alone for many years
working on this painting. I don't know if she's a
religious woman, but it is a painting of Jesus. Yeah,
and she's thinking about her dead husband. So if she
forms a rather intense connection to the painting, perhaps that's
why that's just my speculation. It's a good interpretation, it's

(13:31):
just my speculation. Well, while she's working on the painting,
Diane notices two things. First, it's called a pentimento, which
means a first thought, and that is when there is
like another version of the art under the art. So
she notices that Jesus's thumb, there's two thumbs. So you
wouldn't necessarily find that in a copy, because if you're

(13:53):
just copying someone's artwork, wouldn't you just already know how
the composition is going to look.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, why would you mess up the thumb?

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Why would you change your mind? So that sort of
points to maybe this is an original by somebody and
the other thing she notices. She's like, Okay, I'm trying
to touch up the mouth and I can't. Like this
shading is so perfect and I can't. Like it's blowing

(14:21):
my mind. How it just like that there's something about it.
Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen
this before? And she's like, I've only ever seen this
mouth on one other painting, the Mona Lisa. And so
she like goes to her art book and she like
rips out a picture of the Mona Lisa, and she
like puts the two maus next to each other, and
she's like, this painting is by DaVinci. Ah, it's got

(14:43):
to be a DaVinci. While this is happening, the men
who bought it are also looking into the painting's provenance,
because of course that's like kind of beyond just giving
your opinion, kind of the more legit way you established
who did a painting is like where did it come from? Yeah,
they really figure it out. They track it back to

(15:04):
like the fifties, and then they find a painting that
they think is the painting being logged in like that
the King Charles's would have had. So there's like the
painting goes sort of in and out of history, but.

Speaker 1 (15:21):
They're not even sure that where it's out is the
same painting.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Well, I mean because they didn't have photographs back then,
so like it's a description of a painting that seems
to be the painting, but like, can you say for
sure it's like picture of Jesus by da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
And also salvageremunities were like a popular piece of iconography.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Yeah, and like da Vinci is spelled different, but like
what does that mean? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
I don't know. So around two thousand and eight they
call the National Gallery in London and because the National
Gallery has a confirmed original da Vinci, and they're like,
we should put them next to each other, see see
what what? And they're like, hey, we have an original
da Vinci And the National Gallery is like, do you
know how many fucking phone calls we get every week

(16:08):
from people who think they found original.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
Page, especially after the Da Vinci codes.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Especially after the Da Vinci code and people watch Antiques
Road Show. Yeah, and they're like no, no, no, let
me send you a picture like this is the mouth.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
The mouth is really good.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah, and they're like, Okay, this really looks kind of good.
So let's say, send me the painting. Send me the painting.
And Luke Sison, who is a curator there. He is
sort of a hot shot. He maybe is itching for
a discovery, the bad boy of the art world, maybe
a little bit, maybe a bad boy of the masters,
the old masters. Do you know him?

Speaker 1 (16:41):
No, I just love the idea that there is someone
who people would consider the bad boy of the art world.
I remember when I was in high school, I used
to be a ticket taker at like an outdoor concert
venue where the Chicago's New York Istras sometimes played, and
there was like a monthly magazine that was like, you know,
for the venue, and it feels like every month there
was always a cover of a guy in like a scarf,

(17:02):
and it would always be like the bad boy of Opera.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
I'm just picturing Darren Aronofsky in that photo that people
were like, he plays a drama teacher on Disney Channel
who called mister z.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Yeah, and that's who I'm picturing for this curator.

Speaker 2 (17:17):
He doesn't he looks like a normal English guy, but
you could picture him.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Darren Aronofscanda Scarf great.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
I also, way later on Jerry Saltz will get involved
in this, who is not a bad boy, but he
is sort of the like enfan. He's very much the
enfan trebe or. He's the like he's the fuck you
man of the unbuilt of the artwork. He's the stand up.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Comedian, the podcaster.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Maybe a little bit yeah, he's the like unwoke Austin comedian.
He's also not wrong about this painting.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
But I can't wait. Okay, keep going.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
So they send us at the National Gallery and Luke Syson,
who is a curator there, he calls up some exts,
a few from America, ifew from Britain, a few from Italy,
and he is like, okay, let's have them all look
at the painting and we'll just have a conversation about it.
And very crucially, I think he doesn't want them to
say yes or no. And I think that's because he

(18:14):
doesn't want them to say no yeah, And if you
don't ask the question, you can't get an answer. But
I also think, like what would a yes or no?
Even like he just wants them to have a conversation, Like.

Speaker 1 (18:23):
I think this is fine, even just having a conversation, though,
is like he's trying to raise controversy and attention because
even by saying is this picture by da Vinci, you're
implying that it might be by da Vinci.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
What he's saying is, what do you think of this picture?

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (18:38):
So he invites people to come look at the painting
and give their thoughts. And before I tell you what
their thoughts are, I thought this would be a good
time for us to look at the painting, yeah, and
give our thoughts.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
I would love to. Okay, I'm looking at a restored
version of the painting. It's nice. I think the blue
is Jesus is wearing like a blue robe shirt and
that looks really nice. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (18:59):
So what you have on the left is the painting
cleaned up, so all of the over painting has been
taken off, and all of the varnish has been taken off,
and you can see painting from the old times and
also a lot of damage.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
And then on the right is like plus a lot
of painting by Diane Motustini, and it will continue to
get even more painted by Diane Modostini over the years.
She continues kind of like fucking with it, but just
tell us, tell the listener what you see and what
you think.

Speaker 1 (19:34):
It's Jesus with some really nice long brown curls, holding
up two fingers, you know, in a sort of you know, blessing,
and then in his other hand is either holding I mean,
it looks like a nothing like it looks like a
clear glass orb. And I don't know if it was
because someone was going to paint a globe there or not,

(19:55):
or they just wanted a clear thing. He's holding like
a clear blob in his other hand, and he's wearing
a nice blue robe.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
Okay, lovely. So I am going to just point out
some things that a person can see with the naked eye.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
So the first is that Jesus is looking at you
straight on and sort of facing the viewer, and that
would have been very atypical for da Vinci. He liked
to paint figures in a much more dynamic style. So
the Mona Lisa is famously at like a three quarter
turn and then she's sort of looking over her shoulder
at the viewer. So a lot of people immediately upon

(20:32):
seeing this were like da Vinci would never choose such
a boring composition.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
Yeah, it looks like a school photo composition.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
It does look like a school photo. And then other
experts are like, well, that's how you do Salvador Mundi's
is that it's a boring composition. And then other people
are like, well, you don't have to, that's just how
most people did it.

Speaker 1 (20:49):
Yeah, if he's such a genius, why wouldn't you do
a fun thing. And also it's a boring background.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
It's a very boring background. It's just black. Yeah, And
then other people are like, well, but if it were
a commission, maybe he had to. So this is the
you could just we could be here for hours arguing
about this, but I'm just pointing out some stuff. Yeah,
the ringlets are really beautifully done. Yeah, not a lot
of painters would have been able to pull off those
ringlets the bounce the highlights. But the other parts of

(21:16):
the hair are don't look very good.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, they're sort of matt and flat.

Speaker 2 (21:22):
The hand also really nice looking, but the hand that's
holding the orb is kind of crammed into the corner.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, it sort of doesn't look actually where a hand
would be. Yeah, like it doesn't feel like anatomically correct Yeah,
and da Vinci famously a student of anatomy. Yeah, the orb,
So it's people After studying it for a while, they
decide that it's supposed to be like a solid glass
or crystal orb, and looking through one of those, anything

(21:51):
that is touching the orb would be like only slightly distorted.
But if you're looking through solid crystal, this is literally
what people argue about. Looking through solid crystal, anything that's
like an inch behind it, like his robe, would actually
be seen inverted. Oh and it's not inverted, and da
Vinci would have known that because he's a scientist. Yep.

Speaker 2 (22:13):
So people are like, obviously this is not by da
Vinci because he would have known to invert it. But
then other people say, well, it's a painting of Jesus.
He's not gonna stick a big upside down thing in
the corner.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
Well, then why would he paint it transparent?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Great question. People also say like, listen, this is a
boring painting. Jesus looks kind of stoned. Like I just
don't like it very much, and I don't think it's
by Da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
I'm on a hot tick and I don't think it's
by Davince. Okay, that's my that's my instincts I'm seeing it.
I'm just like it looks kind of muddied, and I
know that that might be some of the restoration. The
background's boring. The hand is really good, and the hair
is really good. But I think da Vinci wasn't the
only person who could paint a good hand, pain a
good curl.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
These are things that are like sort of visible to
the naked eye, but that like only a scholar would notice.
That also come out of this conversation that they have,
they do say, like, okay, this is not like some
Yoko who went into his backyard with oil paints.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
Do they like carbon date it?

Speaker 2 (23:12):
Here's the thing I assume, Yeah, because wouldn't that be
like the first thing you do.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Maybe they can like tell the canvas it's actually from
the fifteen hundred, So it's painted on a.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
Thing of wood. Oh sure, And it's the type of
wood that da Vinci would have used, but it's not
a very like high quality piece of wood, which also
becomes part of the debate. They do later they do
like pigment analysis, and it is made of the stuff
that they used to make pigments. Like it's like the
green has copper in it, and like the basically they're like,

(23:42):
this is from fifteen hundred. Yeap, this is from the
da Vinci school, so it might be from him. It
might be from him, It might be from his workshop,
it might be from like Florence, like people being influenced
by his style. But they're like, listen, it's crazy that
it ended up in New Orleans. But like, yes, seems
like it's from fifteen hundreds, Lawrence. Yeah, the beard and

(24:05):
mustache are really weird because they're not there, but it
looks like they used to be there because there's weird
like dark shadows. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's not like
some flim flammy. You know, this isn't from the eighties.

Speaker 1 (24:17):
It's not like an obvious hoax.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Yeah, it's not like an obvious hoax. And one thing
that gets pointed out is that there seems to be
over one of Jesus's eyes a like a like the
heel of your hand, like a heel print that apparently
da Vinci liked to do to create sort of like
a blurred effect in the paint. That was sort of

(24:41):
his signature was the Spumato look, which was the nice
blurred foggy mists. Yes, one of the scholars is like,
this painting is by da Vinci, and the reason I
know that is that it such a good painting that

(25:02):
only da Vinci could have done it, So best painting ever,
therefore was painted by the best painter ever.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
I actually just have issue with that train of thought
for almost anything. Yeah, no kidding, Like, I just don't.
I think there's a very few things where someone is
such a genius that they are the only person capable
of doing it. Yeah like that, I just that doesn't.
That doesn't hold water to me. But continue, I'm not
an expert.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
It's I mean, even the experts are. But but this
is his thing. He's like, this is just such a
good painting, and I am so affected by it. I
vote da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
You know what, life is boring, take a take a
hard stand. Why not?

Speaker 2 (25:40):
One of the experts, by the exact same reasoning, comes
to the opposite conclusion is like da Vinci was such
a genius, he never could have painted such a bad painting. Yeah, yeah,
why not, which is equally stupid because everyone can do
bad art.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Yeah, and also everyone just like has sort of lazy days,
just sort of like eh, I just sort of also
like maybe this shit, I don't know, maybe it was
just like noodling around or something.

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Everyone else is like somewhere in the middle. Yeah, so
people are like, okay that a lot of people are
like you. They're like the hands in the ringlets. I
would guess maybe like a student did it and he
touched up the hands in the ringlets. Sure, yeah, but
it seems like he wouldn't do the composition because it's
pretty boring composition like Jesus's other hand is sort of

(26:29):
crammed in the corner. Also, attribution changes every twenty years,
so I don't know, talk to me in two hundred years.
But definitely interesting painting good good, fine, good fine good
find yeah good fine, glad you found it. But yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
It seems hard to be able to prove that da
Vinci did it.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah. And the way these things are settled is not
that anyone proves it. It's a consensus is formed. Yeah,
and so they're not reaching a consensus. Nobody wants to
really stick their neck out. They will come to the
consensus that it has now been over restored. They're basically
saying this is a really beautiful painting by Diane Modestini.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
Oh Diane.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
The joke at the time is like, this belongs in
a contemporary art museum because it was painted in two
thousand and five.

Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Yeah, good good. Burn on art Restore Diana Motistini and
bad boy of the National Gallery, Luke Seisen hears this
and he's like, so, what you're telling me is that
this was one thousand percent painted by Leonardo da Vinci
and nobody else. And I can quote you on that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Around twenty ten, twenty eleven, the National Gallery does a
big da Vinci exhibition where and they display the salvad
Or Mundi. They say, this is by da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
What they don't even have like a controversy section on
the Wikipedia. They're no useum.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
They could have said da Vinci workshop. They could have
said attributed to da Vinci. They don't. They say by
da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I could have said possibly by division allegedly.

Speaker 2 (27:58):
Wow, they say bid Divin.

Speaker 1 (28:00):
See he is the bad boy of the art world.

Speaker 2 (28:02):
He was so right, you were one hundred percent right.
So it was alone. After that goes back to its
owners and they're like, great, now that it has been
officially attributed to Leonardo DFINCHI time to sell it, So
they call in Warren Adlson, who is a big time
art dealer.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Is this new? Is this London guy getting a cut?

Speaker 2 (28:21):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
Or is he just got the popularity of people coming
to his museum.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
I think it's more about that and kind of like
the ego. Yeah, Like they might not have told him
that they ever planned to sell it, because there's like
controversy over whether he would have even been allowed to
exhibit it if he had known that it was gonna
be for sale. Oh yeah, because like doing attribution for
something that's gonna be for sale is like a whole

(28:45):
another thing. But then, like I've watched a lecture from
him where he basically talks about, like listen, museum curators
fudge attribution in order to get loans because they want
them for the exhibit and like get the like whatever,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (29:02):
Like, so, whether he was in so that people could
see the art, like they're selling it and they're saying
it was by Da Vinci.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yes, and they're saying the National Gallery signed off on this,
Well it did, yeah, So they and to their credit Ish,
They're like, we want to sell this to a museum.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Yeah too, you should sell it to yes, And.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
So they call him Warren Addelson and they're like, we
want to sell it to a museum. We think it's
worth you know, just like one to two one hundred
million dollars sure, which at the time would make it
for sure one of the more expensive paintings of all time.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
So they start calling around and no museum can raise
the money, and a lot of a lot of them
are interested, but none can raise the money. One museum
in Berlin is like, why would we want this? This
is by Dan Motis. Yeah, yeah, and they kind of
you need to have a little finesse when you're trying
to sell a painting, and they do not have enough finesse.

(29:57):
And it's been rejected too many times. So now collectors
don't want it because it's like the whole idea of
investing in art is that you think the value is
going to go up, and if it's already been rejected,
why would I buy something that nobody wants? Yeah oof, Yeah,
So it just sits there in New York for a
couple of years. Diane keeps like fucking with it, and

(30:20):
it is just like on ice for a couple of years. Okay,
let me take you to the fall of the Soviet Union. Ah,
the fall of the Soviet Union. This man his name
is Dmitri Riblovlev.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
Okay, excellent pronunciation.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
Possibly because I feel six and one a half dozen
of the other I don't want to be disrespectful and
mispronounce his name. So I'm going to be disrespectful and
that I'm going to call this man by his first name, Dimitri.
We're not going to call him Dmitri. This guy named Dmitri,
he buys like all the potassium in Russia, because you know,
everything was owned by the government, so then everything was
for sale. He buys all the potassium in Russia and

(30:57):
becomes like a big time fertilizer magnet. And then one
of the potassium minds collapses and a whole city starts
sinking into sinkholes and it becomes a big ecological disaster.
And so he's like, I'm gonna take my billions of
dollars and foock off to Geneva and Monaco, as one does.
He has since been cleared to wrongdoing, but I think
he's like I think I'm just gonna go be a
rich guy and be surrounded by my bodyguards. Anyway, while

(31:20):
he's in Europe, he meets a man named Eves Bouvier.
Eves spelled like Eve's on the wrong.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Yeah, fancy why Eves.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yes, Eves is the owner of a string of freeports. Okay,
so freeports are they're basically storage facilities that are at airports,
so they're tax havens because your stuff never goes through customs,
so it never has to be declared, so it never
gets taxed.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Must be so fun to be a rich person.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
Yeah, slash, like really icky stressful actually, because these are
like some of the most valuable pieces of art in
the world and no one can even see them.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
I remember feeling that one out walking through the vatic
Like I went to Italy, went to the Vatican, and
the Vatican just has so much art that some of
us just like on the floor, Like you're like going through,
like peeking your head into these rooms and it's just
like wall to wall sculptures, like sculptures like stacked on
the floor, and it's like they just have so much.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
They're allowsy with it. It allows you with it, it
allows you with it.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
So these freeports.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
So these freeports, they're just like a place where people
can just keep gold and art and other things that
they don't want to pay taxes on. And they even
found there's a number of documentaries about this painting, and
they even found some like Rich fat Cat to be
in one of them, who literally says like, you know,
if the taxes were more reasonable, we wouldn't need these

(32:39):
And I'm like, no, you have a yacht.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Yeah, pay your taxes.

Speaker 2 (32:42):
Pay your taxes anyway. So because Eves owns these freeports,
he sort of has like his nose in the art
worlds a little bit and he knows what's up in
the art world. And he becomes a art consultant for
Dmitri because he knows what's happening. And Dmitri, according to Eves,

(33:07):
mostly enjoys nude images. But for whatever reason, he stumbles
upon the Salvator MOUNDI, which is just sitting in New
York and he's like, I really like this painting.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
Something about it, something about it.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Just speaks to me. And Eves is like, dude, this
painting is like really overpriced and not good it.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Yeah, it's like damage goods at this point.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
Yeah, like this just like an utherly painting of Jesus,
Like it's not cool. Dimitri's like, no, like I want
this painting. Make it happen. And I'm like, all right,
let's go to New York and look at the painting.
So they go to New York, they get the painting.
They like, go to a penthouse and they look at
the painting in person, and Dimitri's like, I love this painting.

(33:48):
I need this painting, and he's just like, all right,
I'll make it happen. And they want all of this
to be anonymous. So they're going through sebabies. So for
whatever reason, they have to do the negotiations in Paris.
They can't just stay in New York obviously.

Speaker 1 (34:04):
Yeah, Paris negotiations for art deals.

Speaker 2 (34:07):
Yeah, so where the players are is. I think Warren
Addelson handles the negotiations on the seller side in Paris.
Sotheby's is in New York. Eves and his poker player friend,
because that's how you get to do negotiations obviously as

(34:27):
a poker player. They're in Paris, Dimitri is on his yacht.
Sotheby's is handling the transaction between They're going to sell
the painting to a shell company owned by Eves that
is then going to sell the painting to Dimitri so
that it can remain anonymous. Okay, And at the end

(34:48):
of a very long day of negotiation, Eve's texts or
emails Dimitri and is like, that was hush. You didn't
want to pay more than one hundred and thirty million dollars.
Got them down to one hundred and twenty seven point
five million dollars. The painting is yours. You're welcome, homie.

(35:11):
I'm gonna take my two percent commission and uh, pleasure
doing business. You know, we've done a lot of paintings together,
and you know, enjoy your yacht. You will have the
painting soon.

Speaker 1 (35:21):
Job well done, y'all around.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
I'll have stored in one of my freeports for you.
And that is the story. I'm just kidding. A couple
of years later, Okay, a reporter in New York is like, Hey,
whatever happened about painting? Yeah, that maybe was by Da Vinci,
but maybe wasn't. And he's like, oh, it got sold
through seventies.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Huh for one hundred and twenty seven point five million dollars.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
Well, he starts calling around and he writes an article
and he can't get an exact answer because they don't
want to talk, and he can't find out who the
buyer was.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
Shell Company anonymous.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Yeah, but he writes an article and he talks to
other Eves and he talks to the sellers, and he
writes an article about how it was sold for like
eighty million dollars. Eighty million, you say, yeah, so see
this is where again, this is my speculation that Eves
might have not counted on America having a free press.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
So Dimitri reads this and he's like, Eves, do you
owe me fifty million dollars.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
And commission back? I imagine, well yeah, And.

Speaker 2 (36:28):
Eves is like, oh, interesting, interesting, interesting. See you thought
that I was a broker helping you buy this painting. Oh,
I'm an art dealer. I buy low, sell high. I
bought a painting and then I sold it to you.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
He bought it for eighty sold it for one hundred
and twenty.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Yeah, and I've been doing this with every single piece
of art that I've helped you with. So I have
made a billion dollars off of you. Ees, and I
can legal because it's a show company of What Are
You Gonna Do?

Speaker 1 (37:03):
This is so funny because this is sort of the
hoax of the episode, But really it's just a guy
doing a job and a guy who wasn't paying close
enough attention.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
And it's also like one gross oily rich guy scamming
off another gross oily rich guy.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
He owns freeports. Yeah you should know he's a rich
guy scammer. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Also, like the art world is so opaque and almost
completely unregulated. Yeah that it's just insane.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening to
rich people.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:34):
Imagine getting scammed out of like fifty million dollars and
you like kind of didn't notice, You had no idea
until a journalist write about it.

Speaker 2 (37:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Wow, is Eve still around?

Speaker 2 (37:44):
It?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Has someone bumped him yet? I think he's like pretty scared, right,
he's like making really rich people men. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:50):
So Dimitri's like, well, not only am I suing you, Yeah,
I'm also suing subthenties. Yeah I also hate all my
art now, oh because it's reminds me of how I
overpaid for all my art. Yeah. So he's like, well
I hate Sethby's so I'm gonna call Christie's and I'm
gonna sell all my art Christie's will you take all

(38:10):
my art? And Christie's is like Shah, Russian billionaire will
take literally all of your art. We have no fucking
clue what to do with this weird s maybe Da
Vinci painting, but we're not gonna take all but one
of your art pieces. We want to make this Russian
billionaire happy. Yeah, so we'll take all of it. And
they're quite smart about how they position this. We're now

(38:32):
went to twenty seventeen. Okay, they are like, okay, if
we put this in an auction of like old master's paintings,
then they're gonna be comparing it to other works which
have like much better papers, much more legit provenance, Like
it's not gonna look that good.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
If we put it with like contemporary art and we
go for a bunch of like money types who are
just what they're calling like trophy hunters who just want
the name recognition from the frickin Da Vinci code, maybe
we can just get like some dumb money out of people.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
And also the controversy.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, so what they do they for I think the
first time ever for like a big auction house. They
hire an outside marketing company to drum up some publicity
around this painting. Smart yes, and they put together a
whole campaign. They call it the Last Da Vinci.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Oh, that's a good title.

Speaker 2 (39:34):
This is the last Da Vinci that's ever gonna get.
This is your last chance to ever own a piece
of history, the piece of art, great final.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Piece of the code.

Speaker 2 (39:44):
Yes, the final piece of the code. Jesus himself, you know,
fuck the Last Supper where he's sharing the stage with
you know, a bunch of apostles. This is just Jesus.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
This is his graduation photo.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
It really does look at graduation, and they put it
on display at Christie's. It gets its own room. It's
just a dark room, black walls, black floor, and it
is like surrounded by like sort of like almost like
strobe lights so that it appears to glow. And they

(40:17):
make this video where the camera is positioned right below
the painting, facing at the viewer and the video. The
painting is not in the video, it's just people's reactions
to the painting. Because there's something called Stendall syndrome where
people keep bursting into tears looking at the painting.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Wow, they really this marketing company really nailed it.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
They really nailed it. People are lined up around the
block to look at the painting. You know who shows up,
Leonardo DiCaprio. Wow, his wells up a little bit looking
at his namesake. Yeah, Leo, Leo.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
It's true. No, Leonardo DiCaprio's named Leonardo because his mom
first felt him kick when she was looking at the
Leonardo da Vinci painting, and.

Speaker 2 (41:00):
He first felt the human emotion looking at I'm just kidding.
I'm sure reason totally normal guy. It's very cheesy, but
you know whatever, people like art.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
People like art, people like controversy.

Speaker 2 (41:11):
People like controversy. Also, like of all the things to
pull cheesy tabloid moves about, like if it gets people
talking about art history, like, go for it, you know
what I mean? Like this is so much better than
speculating about people's private lives.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Also, the entire art world is just a shell nothing,
nothing is worth that much money. So it's all just
investing for your text purposes and your texhavens whatever. So
it's all silly and stupid.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
And you're extremely speaking my language.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
It's meaningless.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
They go on a whole they bring this painting like onto,
you know, Good Morning America or whatever. It's very funny
how much people just like buy the marketing materials they
I mean.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
If you tell anyone, no one, very very very few
people are historical art experts. And so if you tell
almost anyone painting is amazing and it's important and it's
probably by Leonardo da Vinci, then they look at the painting,
they'll believe you. Yes.

Speaker 2 (42:07):
And there's a there's a great clip where this like
very excited Christie's guy comes on Good Morning America and
he's showing maybe just a picture of the painting. But
one of the hosts is like, now, tell me why
do they call it the male Mona Lisa. And it's
like because Christie's called it the male Mona Lisa, Like

(42:28):
that was a marketing term they made up. And now
they're like, tell us about why art historians call him.
It's like, no, they made that up.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I am. So this is so resonating with me because
I'm like dumb with art. Yeah, and so I go
to a museum and I love an art museum, but
I will fully confess that sometimes I'm like walking through
like paintings and I read who did it and until
I recognize a name where I'm like, oh, this one
must be good. Oh monete, I've heard of him, this
one must be a good one. And then I'm like,

(42:56):
I'll look at this one for a little longer because
I assume it's good.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
That's why we need museum to tell us what paintings are.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
Tell me what to look at, and I'll enjoy it.
I'll have a great afternoon.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Yeah, thank you, curators. And I will also say, you
know what, Christie's is not a museum. It is an
auction house, and it is their job to get the
best possible price for their clients. So like, I get that, Like,
go for it. The auction is held November twenty seventeen,
and it is expected to meet or beat the record

(43:24):
for the most expensive paintings sold at auction. Okay, would
you like to know some of the most expensive paintings
and artworks sold in auction?

Speaker 1 (43:31):
I would love to.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
So there are private sales for hundreds of millions of
dollars pretty often, but we don't really know about those
at this point. So November twenty seventeen. At this point,
the record is held by David Geffen heard of him,
who bought a Picasso at auction for one hundred and
eighty million in twenty fifteen. There's also a van Go

(43:56):
that's like yellow sunflowers in a vase with the yellow background,
classic Vengo yep, that was sold for the modern equivalent
of over one hundred million dollars in the eighties. Just
to sort of set the trend of how these are going.
To give more context about how much various artworks are worth.
The Mona Lisa was assessed for insurance purposes in nineteen

(44:17):
sixty two at one hundred million dollars. Taking inflation inflation
into account, it's worth about a billion dollars. But of
course it is not for sale. Yeah, so it is
technically not It's like, what does anything work? But it
is not priced at anything because it is not for sale. Yeah,
And Jeff Coons holds the record. I don't know what
the record is, but it's he got the most for

(44:38):
a living artist and for him, yeah, for one of
his sculptures. I just think it's interesting, Like, again, the
art world is almost completely unregulated. Assessing the value of
a piece of art is like really mercurial art in itself. Yeah,
David cho is a like graffiti the artist, and he

(45:01):
painted the Facebook offices in return for quote unquote sweat equity,
which means that he got stock in the company really
early on, which then he sold for two hundred million dollars,
which is great. I don't know that anyone is saying
that he did two hundred million dollars worth of graffiti.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, and it's not like that graffiti could be sold
for two hundred million dollars or could it.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
I don't know, or that he could ever do an
equivalent amount of art that then would be sold for
two hundred million dollars.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Like.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
So you know, people use art as collateral a lot
to get loans. Yeah, so banks are sometimes pricing art.
I mean they have art experts.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Now, what is anything worth At the end of the day,
it's all arbitrary.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
The value isn't necessarily intrinsic. Like if you have a
piece of art by someone who a is no longer
alive to make new pieces and be we don't necessarily
know how many pieces there are, you have reason to
not want there to be more pieces discovered because that

(46:05):
would lower the value of your piece. So everybody who
already owns a Da Vinci doesn't want there to be
more Da Vinci's. Yeah, because the fewer Da Vinci's there are,
the more valuable verir da vinci Is.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
It makes sense to me, So who is biased who
is not.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Christie's can totally pay experts, like museums aren't necessarily supposed
to pay professors to say stuff, but like there's nothing
stopping Christie's from doing that.

Speaker 1 (46:29):
Cereal companies are paying people to say cereals healthy or whatever.

Speaker 2 (46:33):
I'll have to say, this is very opaque and unregulated.
Back to the auction. After twenty minutes, it comes down
to two bidders, both of whom are being represented by
proxies on the phone. Would you like to guess how

(46:54):
much it went for and who bought it?

Speaker 1 (46:57):
One hundred and twenty million dollars one hundred and fifty
million dollars, two hundred million dollars Lizzie two hundred and
fifty million dollars, four hundred million dollars.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Four hundred million dollars. Well, the winning bid was four
hundred million dollars. Because you have to pay Christie's a fee.
It went for four hundred and fifty point three million dollars.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Jesus, Yeah, Oh my god, they should feed the hungry children.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
They really makes me sick to my stuff.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
That's not great that people are paying this much for
a picture that maybe was by da Vinci. And even
if it was, what then who can of feed? I know,
I know, help children.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
Do you have any idea who bought it? Do you
want to just throw some guesses out? Just rich people?

Speaker 1 (47:41):
I don't know that. That Eves guy again, that Geffen again?

Speaker 2 (47:46):
No, okay, it's not Bezos.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
Not Bezos. I don't know Zuckerberg. No, I'm running out
a rich guy, assume a to deal. The PayPal guy. No,
not Peter Thial.

Speaker 2 (47:58):
I'll give you nobody in China.

Speaker 1 (48:00):
In China, it's someone in tech tech money. No, how
do you make his money? Buffett? No, how do he
make his money?

Speaker 2 (48:11):
Nippo baby?

Speaker 1 (48:12):
The the shipping air that Paris Hilton dated.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
You're getting closer.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
Who is it?

Speaker 2 (48:19):
Uh? Listeners, I'm going to give you five seconds to
write down your answer and then we're gonna find out.
But one if you said the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
Oh I should have gotten that.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
Yeah, that makes sense, Dana, off the top of your head,
can you think of a reason it's weird that the
crown Prince of Saudi Arabia bought a painting of.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
Jesus because he's Muslim.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, yeah, can you tell me why that's weird.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Well, it's like because he doesn't want this as art.
He just wants this as like what a tax write
off or something.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Because one of the things you're not supposed to do
is Lam, in addition to not eating pork, is have
paintings of prophets.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
Yeah, that's very so you're very smart. Yeah, God, So.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
For those who don't know, it's okay to learn new
things in Islam, as it is sort of traditionally practiced.
You're not really supposed to have artworks of people. Actually,
you're not supposed to display artworks of people because nothing
is supposed to be above a law. But you're really
not supposed to have so. Uh. Obviously, the prophet Mohammed
is like their main guy, and you should, as I've

(49:29):
learned tragedies, really not depict the prophet Mohammad. It would
have been a big issue for Christie's if they'd done that.
But Muslims also like rock with Jesus, like he is
not their savior, but they do recognize him as a prophet,
So having a painting of him is like pretty weird,
like pretty sketch, and like, what's he going to do

(49:51):
with it? Put it up in his palace?

Speaker 1 (49:53):
No, he can't, he can't, but it's just right for
like bragging rights really really questionable.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
Yeah, so immediately just like red flags all over the place.
Oh all right, let's learn a little bit about the
crand friends of Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
He's probably a great guy, I'm guessing.

Speaker 2 (50:14):
No, he definitely oversaw the beheading of that journalist Jamal Kashoki,
whose name I'm sorry I probably mispronounced. Mohammed Bin Salmon,
or MBS as people tend to call him, is effectively
the leader of the country. His father is the king,
but his father is not well, so MBS is in charge.
In November twenty seventeen, things are tense in Saudi Arabia.

(50:37):
He had just like a week and a half prior
imprisoned like a hundred fellow government officials and high ranking
businessmen in the ritz in Riyad as part of a
so called corruption perch, which was basically he was trying
to get them to turn over like hundreds of millions

(50:59):
of dollars.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
Saudi Arabia's economy is almost entirely based on oil, and
so when the price of oil is low, it doesn't
do well, and so they're trying to diversify, which will
come up in a second. He positions himself as a
reformer and also preaches austerity measures. But he had recently
bought a very tacky three hundred million dollars chateau in France.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
Yeah, but what a bargain when it's less than a painting.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, but he'd also bought a four hundred million dollar yacht,
so like, plus the painting, it's a lot. And women
also can't drive in Saudi Arabia, which is not related
to the painting, but just for contact, Yeah, for context,
just contexts. Women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia at this time.
Apparently the tip that finally broke the story that he

(51:46):
was the buyer was from because like everybody in the
government in Saudi Arabia is just like his cousins and
his distant cousins, and also like the bin Laden's. Apparently
the tip came from one of his cousins who had
been imprisoned in the Ritz and was so mad about it.
You like texted the.

Speaker 1 (52:01):
New your cousin boss is painting this dumb painting.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
But as The Times is confirming this story, the Louver
comes out and says, oh, the Salvador Mundi is part
of our permanent collection now, so don't don't worry about it. Obviously,
it's not going to go on display in like the
Royal Palace or whatever. And it's our you know, it's
it's Saudi Arabia's gift to the world. It's not just

(52:25):
like a trinket for Ego's sake. It's it's not sacrilegious,
it's it's.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
A gift from Saudi Arabia to the world.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
It's going up in the louver, So everybody be chill.
It's art and it's for the people, and it's going
up in the louver. And I know what you're thinking, Dana,
You're thinking which louve.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
That's That's exactly what I was thinking. There are multiple loops.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
There are three looves.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
I didn't know that.

Speaker 2 (52:48):
Yeah, there are three. There's the main one that's in
Paris where the Mona Lisa is.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
I've been there, yep, not to brag, but I have
been there.

Speaker 2 (52:56):
Brag. I have also been there, Brad Yep, it's nice.
Lot of art, lot art, art, lot of history, lot art,
lot of history. There's one in len Len's l e
n s which is a town in France that is
not Paris.

Speaker 1 (53:10):
Sure well, satellite love GYP.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
And there's one in Abu Dhabi.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
Sure yeah, so that's going going to that one.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
It's going to that one Abu Dhabi. For those who
don't know, it's okay to not know things not in
Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (53:22):
The United ARABEMA United Arab.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
Emirates, which is right next to Saudi Arabia and its
kind of almost like nestled into Saudi Arabia.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
You probably know it as the setting for Sex and
the City too.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
I was gonna bring it up, but yeah, I'm famous
for they did saddle poor Cynthia Nixon with the line
Abu Jabi do convicted something I can't unhear.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Yes, United Arab Emirates also a Muslim country, but like
a little bit more tourist friendly. In addition to Abu Dhabi,
they also have Dubai, so it makes a little bit
more sense to go there. And also the Crown Prince
the two crown princes are like buds. Sure, so this
is coming from the Louver Abujabi, which had like just
opened at that point, so they're like, we're getting the

(54:05):
Solva or Mundy. So it's like, okay, makes a little
bit more sense. It's going to the Middle East.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
And it's going to a museum, which is good.

Speaker 2 (54:12):
It's going to a museum, Okay. Sure. In March twenty eighteen,
Christie's I don't know that they receive like maybe the
last payment that they needed, one of the last payments,
and they pack up the painting and they send it
off to Saudi Arabia and that is the last time
the painting is ever in America. Okay, So Audio's painting,

(54:35):
Goodbye painting. Yeah. In September, the Louver says we have
a delay in displaying the painting coming soon, and everyone's like, okay, well,
they're probably just saving it for November when it'll be
the one year anniversary of the museum opening, sure.

Speaker 1 (54:52):
And building an exhibit around it or whatever.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Yeah, November comes and goes, no painting. At this point,
the painting is starting to be a little bit I'm
I'm comparing it to like reputation Taylor's version where it's
like is it coming, is it going to be there?

Speaker 1 (55:06):
It's not common coming. Oh.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Saudi Arabia is also building its own cultural centers because
again they're trying to move away from an oil based economy.
There it's really hard to describe, but if you look
up a Lula, it's this like cultural center that they're
and like tourist destination that they're trying to build. It
is at once a historic and geographic wonder of the

(55:33):
world that they are now trying to turn into like
a museum slash like visitors center. But they are doing
this in collaboration with the French government that they announced
as part of a deal that also maybe involves like
an arms trade, but like, don't look at that, look
at the cultural part.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
So it's like maybe the painting is going to go there.

Speaker 2 (55:56):
Yeah, people are sort of speculating. They're like, oh, the
painting now belongs to the Cultural Ministry, not the Crown Prince.
So like, I guess it makes sense that they bought
the painting. It's like an investment in Saudi Arabia's cultural future.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
Like yeah, like get tourists. They're sure, like sure.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
Later in twenty eighteen, and this is now we're talking
like anonymous sources speaking on deep background, people high up
in the French cultural ministry are saying, Saudi Arabia has
sent the painting to the Louver, the one that's in Paris,
and the Louver has been allowed to take it out
of its frame and do like scans and like the

(56:39):
carbon dating and the testing and like all their fancy
Louver tests, and they are writing up like a big
scientific analysis. And also they're getting ready for the five
hundredth like death aversary of Da Vinci. They're going to
do a big Da Vinci exhibit and they want the

(57:00):
Salvador Mundy on display. So they're trying to play nice
with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, and they supposedly reportedly write up
a program saying, we the Louver say this is a
da Vinci. Okay, we did all our shmancy tests and
this is a da Vinci. And that probably would have

(57:21):
kind of settled the debate, I think, because who wants
to pick a fight with the Louver. There is no
expert out there who is as famous as the Louver,
who has as much name recognition to the general public
as the Louver.

Speaker 1 (57:36):
Yeah, what are you gonna do? You can't. It's it's
hard to prove a negative.

Speaker 2 (57:39):
It's hard to prove a negative. And like the public
would have accepted it, Like even if the academic community didn't,
the public would have.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
If the have told me this was by Da Vinci,
I'd be like, it was probably by Da Vinci.

Speaker 2 (57:50):
Yeah, Jerry Saltz wouldn't be convinced. He around the time
of the auction, like made a video for Vice where
he like defaced a poster of the painting where they're like,
ass us.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Not our great, he's doing his thing.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
It's funny, but it's also like you're like a middle
aged man, what are you doing? Ranting?

Speaker 1 (58:06):
He's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing, and
it's exactly that he's doing his job. You're right, he's
he's doing his whole thing.

Speaker 2 (58:14):
All right, And so yeah, that would have been it
would have been in the textbooks, except according to reportedly
allegedly she says, he says the Crown Prince says, the
condition of this loan is I want the painting hung
next to the Mona Lisa, and the louver is like,

(58:35):
can't do it, Mona Lisa gets her own room. It's
a logistical and security nightmare. We can't move the Mona Lisa.
Everybody comes to see the Mona Lisa. We can't do it.
We could put it near the Mona Lisa, or maybe
when this whole big Da Vinci bruhaha is over and
we're having sort of like normal traffic patterns again, we
could like put them in the same room, but with

(58:57):
this whole side by side thing, not the power. Yeah,
and he's like, okay, then you can't have it. So
they're not going to write it in the program, so
they they they recall the booklet. They're like, destroy all
copies of the booklet, but a couple copies have been
leaked out. The exhibit opens, no Salvator Mundi, no statement

(59:21):
from the loof. Around this time, they let everybody out
of the ritz. I know you were wondering, and women
can drive in Saudi Arabia right, just to tie up
those loose hands. But a couple copies have leaked out
and journalists start calling and the louver is like, I
don't know what you're talking about. We never tested that painting, and.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
We can't read. And if we can't read, we don't
know how to read.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
I've never heard even of a Jesus.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Someone would paint Jesus.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Why crazy, that's crazy. Da Vinci. He he was mostly
known for that thing which drew Barrymore.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
And the Mona Lisa, which we have.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Did you mention that imagine that we have that we
You should watch this movie the Da Vinci Code. It's
very good. Tom Hanks pretty hot anyway, but they fully
denied the love is like we can't comment on a
loan that didn't happen. And then in twenty twenty, like
the report leaks online like it's France. They can't keep
a secret.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
For shit, they get someone wine drunk and they'll send
it out.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
So we don't really know, like chicken egg, like was
the Louver truly standing behind this and the Crown Prince
shot himself in the foot by being pissy or were
they trying to placate him and he went too far?
Like I don't know, I don't know the story.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
That's so interesting because it's like maybe it's like, do
they genuinely believe that it is a mono, that it
is a Da Vinci or were they just trying to
get it? Yeah, because It's like if they did, why
wouldn't they just still say it even if they weren't
getting it getting alone.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
I mean, but I also I kind of get where
they're like, we're not gonna do a bunch of shit
to Valley this painting they were not even displaying, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Yeah, no, I get it. And it's like they did
all this like you know, science ye stuff, with the
assumption that they would be displaying it. They're not just.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
Going to do that for some guy, yeah, like to
increase his wealth, yeah, and not to benefit the people.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
So, Lizzie, do you think that it's really a da Vinci?
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
I mean, so just to wrap it up, yeah, a
little anti climactic. It's now six years later. People have
not heard hide nor hair of the painting.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
It's not on display even in uh Abu Dhabi. Louv No.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
No. People think it might be on his yacht. Nobody
knows where it is. Diane Modsini, anytime anyone asked her
about it, she's just like, oh my god, please put
it in a temperature controlled room. Like she's just very
care She just cares about the painting a lot, and
she's like, you just have to reframe it every couple
of years because blah blah blah. My hot take is
that if a painting is valued above a certain amount,

(01:02:00):
I'm molar to like how even if you own and
live inside a landmark building, you can't like do certain
things to it. If a artwork you own is valued
above a certain amount, you should have to display it
like four weeks a year, yes, if you like. And
we can't just keep it in a safe in a freeport.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
And when people say, well, what's the value if you
paid that much for it? Yeah, yeah, if you paid
x amount of money, like over fifty million dollars for
paying people should be allowed to see it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
Yeah, people should be allowed to see it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Like, it's a great take.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
You cannot keep priceless treasures to yourself, you know, it
would be it would be like saying you're not allowed
to see the Pyramids, you know what I mean? Like,
humanity gets to.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
See masterpiece, and you are the person who is saying
with your money that it is worth that much. Yeah,
So if it's worth that much, people get to see it. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Do I think that it's Well, see this is I
want to open the floor for discussion. To me, this
whole thing was like really reminding me of the ship
of theseus because it's like at like, what is a
da Vinci? Yeah, is anything thing he touched with his
paintbrush even once? A da Vinci? Is anything anyone else
touched with their paintbrush even once? Not a da Vinci, like,

(01:03:10):
because it is for sure a Modestini, like she painted
large parts of that canvas, no question, Yeah, definitely Modstini.
I have no problem saying, like the hand in the
ringlets and the fumato print, like sure, I want to
believe you know what I mean? Like if you tell
me like no, only da Vinci could have done those,
and if you say that he probably didn't do the rest,

(01:03:32):
is it a collab?

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Like I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
I still think it's a really interesting piece of art
history in that way, but I also don't like, I
just don't love the painting.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Lizzie, I could not agree more. I think for me
art like because I don't know a ton about art,
but I love history. Yeah, and so for me, a
piece of artwork becomes really interesting to me when there's
like a story behind it and around it, And so
that makes this painting very interesting to me, even if
I'm like kind of a natural skeptic and cynic, and

(01:04:04):
so I'm like, look, statistically, it kind of seems like,
if anything, it was just like in his school. Yeah,
it's just took. My instinct is like, I don't know,
it just seems like more likely than not that someone
found Isn't it a miracle that they found something that
was like associated in a near Da Vinci in a
New Orleans five hundred years later?

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Like I mean, it's like crazy that it is from
the Renaissance.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Yeah, it's a great, great job everyone, And what a Lizzie,
what a story.

Speaker 2 (01:04:31):
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
To me, this story reminds me of do you remember
the episode of The Office Garage Sale? Yes, where Dwight
starts with a thumbtack and trades his way up to
a telescope.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Yeah, that was like also the viral thing of like
a guy traded a paper clip for a house.

Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yes, So that to me is what this is. Is
like someone took a painting that was worth maybe as
low as twelve hundred dollars and just by sheer people,
just more and more people adding their name to it
turned it into four hundred and fifty million dollars just
by this painting chain hands and changing hands and changing publicists.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
Yeah, I mean really, Christie's publicists are the MVPs here. Really,
it's also the idea, I mean, I think it's I'm
bastardizing the term, but the mere exposure effect of like
if you've heard of something, you think it's better. Yeah,
And I think that, like Dana at an art museum,
people assume if something is famous or known that it's
inherently better, and that's just not always the case because value,

(01:05:24):
especially value when it comes to art, is inherently subjective.

Speaker 2 (01:05:27):
Also, is the entire art market money laundering? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
Yeah, one percent?

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Is this just a bunch of criminals who trying to
make it look like they are art dealers.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
They get to like launder their their tax shelters in
a way that makes them look fancy. Yeah, it's the
fanciest way to scam taxpayers.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
And then my final question is what would you do
with four hundred and fifty million dollars? And you can't
say give it to charity.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
I wouldn't give all of it to charity. That would
be so stupid of me. Can you imagine all of it? Oh? Yeah,
I actually know exactly what I would do. I would
fully invest, like fully pay for my son's college tuition.
Just that's done. That's step one.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You think he's going to college. Yeah, if you have
four and fifty million dollars, you think your son's going
to college.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Now he's gonna he's gonna be a riding in a jekie. Yeah,
he's gonna be riding a jet skiper his whole life. No,
I like take care of that. I buy like a
really nice house. I go really, oh my god, Lizzie.
If I could tell you I want a walk in,
I want a bathroom with two sinks next to each other,
that'd be great.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
If you're describing like an upper middle class.

Speaker 1 (01:06:33):
I want an upper middle class home and in la
And then I would buy a first class This is
actually what I would do. I would buy a first
class ticket and take a long, long vacation to London
and stay at this one thousand dollars a night hotel.
That's the old War offices that they convert into a hotel.
It's crazy expensive. I would go to Paris and stay

(01:06:55):
at the Ritz in Paris. And that's what I would
do if I had for ned and then then you
would be allowed to leave the ritz crucially crucially, and
it would be the one in Paris. And then I
would also give some to charity. Sure, what would you
do with four hundred million dollars?

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
I would get a massage every day.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
No, that's too many massages.

Speaker 2 (01:07:10):
I think I would feel really good.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
I actually actively don't like a massage, and I'm going
to tell you a reason why. That's going to make
you annoyed with me. You don't like strangers touching your body? No,
I just think that I just get antsy that I'm
not being productive. Yeah you told me that before.

Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Yeah, well I think you need to chill out.

Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
I do maybe if massage, Maybe if a massage could
get through to me, it would work, I would I
just like, I can't actually relax because while I'm getting
a massage, I'm like I could be doing something.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Well, go do something, all right, let's end this wasteful,
tedious podcast then so you can go be productive podcaster.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
I learned so much about the salvage removing. This is
the most productive time. Lizzie. Where can the good people
find you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:53):
They can find me on Instagram at Lizzie Logan with
five z's Dana where can Good People.

Speaker 1 (01:07:57):
Find You Instagram and TikTok Danish shorts with only three
z's at the end is Richard and Z's than I
It's True And follow us on Hoax the podcast on
Instagram and like and subscribe and share this podcast with
a friend.

Speaker 2 (01:08:11):
Yeah, give a little review, Give a little review, give
a review, Tell us your favorite painting, Give us your
favorite painting.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Please Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Hoax is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our hosts are
Danish Schorts and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt
Frederick and Trevor Young, with supervising producer Rima L. K
Ali and producers Nomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme
music was composed by Laine Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

(01:08:53):
your podcasts. Thanks for listening.