Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Has Reportedly “Misplaced” A $450 Million Painting He Bought Last Year
ByJoseph Gibsonon December 6, 2018inArticles›Billionaire News
Last year, Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Salvator Mundi became the most expensive in the world after it was sold to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for $450 million. Now, in a baffling development, The Times reports that the painting has not been seen publicly since its acquisition by Louvre Abu Dhabi, and that scholars and others with an interest in the important piece of artistic history are growing worried that is has been somehow lost.
Professor Martin Kemp , the da Vinci expert who helped to authenticate the painting and bring it out of relative obscurity after it was sold for less than $10,000 back in 2005, tells The Times the “disturbing” current status of the situation:
“Nobody outside the immediate Arab hierarchy knows where it is… I have no idea. The mystery of its location is, of course, disturbing.”
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Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The disappearance is only the latest chapter in Salvator Mundi’s long, complicated history, that has seen it go from an overpainted, virtually worthless mess to a genuine, authenticated da Vinci over the course of the 20th century, having once been sold in 1958 for just £45 as a work by one of da Vinci’s pupils. Eventually, it ended up in the collection of Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev (whose purchase of the painting from dealer Yves Bouvier is one of the points in the big price fixing scandal and legal dispute between Rybolovlev, Bouvier, and auction house Sotheby’s), who sold it to the Crown Prince just days before the opening of the Louvre Abu Dhabi was announced.
The original plan was for the painting to be unveiled at the Louvre Abu Dhabi in September, but the museum postponed that unveiling, adding to the concern among those interested in the work’s safekeeping. That includes Robert Simon, who was part of the consortium of art collectors who purchased the painting in 2005, who says:
“I am concerned about its condition, its well-being… I am trusting and believing that, wherever it is, there are people who understand that it is a 500-year-old, very fragile work of art and that they are keeping it in museum conditions.”
Hopefully, he is correct in his trust and his belief and the painting has not truly been jeopardized in anyway.
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Saudi Prince Buys Russian Billionaire’s Yacht, Kicks Him Off The Next Day
ByJoseph Gibsonon October 31, 2016inArticles›Billionaire News
Right now, Saudi Arabia is in the midst of an economic crisis, being dealt with in part through austerity measures imposed by the country’s government. But that government’s deputy crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman , evidently still has some fall-back funds in the coffers, since he recently made a big ticket purchase that’s understandably making waves in his own country and throughout the world.
According to The New York Times , bin Salman made a surprising impulse buy sometime last year, one that’s only now becoming public knowledge. While on vacation in France, he caught a glimpse of Serene , the 440-foot mega yacht owned (at the time) by Russian vodka billionaire Yuri Shefler . In a matter of hours, bin Salman made an offer and the yacht was then his, having paid about $550 million for it. By the following day, Shefler, whatever guests he might have had on board and all his things were gone, and bin Salman was the one true owner of the Serene.
Phil Walter/Getty Images
The sale is bound to be a controversial one, particularly within the context of the state of Saudi Arabian politics, in which not only have belts have been tightened throughout the Saudi government, but bin Salman himself has amassed levels of political power that are historically unprecedented for a deputy crown prince. But in his defense, Serene is a pretty irresistible piece of craftsmanship, in addition to ranking among the biggest superyachts in the world. Back in 2014, it was good enough for Bill Gates and his family, who rented it at the rate of $5 million a week, and it has a GSE Trieste VAS 525/60 submarine and a Eurocopter EC-145 on board. So if you, like Prince Mohammed bin Salman , were going to get yourself into potentially hot political water by splurging on a yacht, this would be the one to do it with.
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