Nov 21, 2017 4 min read

Even the most lionized artists have created works that, in retrospect, might not rise to the “masterpiece” level.

Few scholars would place Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus” or “Troilus and Cressida” on the same plane as “Richard III,” “Hamlet” or “King Lear.” Some in the classical music cognoscenti argue Beethoven’s later work was no match for what he produced in his early and middle periods. And while he may have a Nobel Prize in literature to his credit, along with a Pulitzer Prize, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a raft of other honors, even the most fervid of Bob Dylan’s admirers concede a few of the albums he unleashed at the height of the MTV-powered 1980s might have been better left in a box in his attic.

The same goes for Leonardo da Vinci. There are only 15 pieces by the Italian Renaissance artist known to exist, including “Mona Lisa,” which is exhibited behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre Museum in Paris. The painting “Salvador Mundi,” a depiction of Jesus Christ, is not held in the same esteem. Rediscovered in 2005, some scholars are not even sure the painting is actually by Leonardo, but might instead be the work of an acolyte.

Whether it is from the master’s hand or not, New York Times art critic Jason Farago was less than overwhelmed when he recently got an up close look at it: “The savior of the world appears in this painting as a soft, spumy cipher. His eyes are blank. His chin, flecked with stubble, recedes into a shadow. The raised right hand is stiffer and less sensate than John the Baptist’s, and overlit relative to his shaded cheeks and mouth.”

He continues, “‘Salvador Mundi’ retreats into itself. This Jesus, far from saving the world, might struggle to save himself a seat on a crosstown bus.”

So, “Salvador Mundi” is, at best, second-tier Leonardo da Vinci, and it might not even be by Leonardo da Vinci. That didn’t stop it from selling at auction last week for a price that left many observers dumbstruck – $450 million.

That’s right, $450 million. Let’s put that in perspective. The previous, most-expensive piece of art sold at auction, a work by Pablo Picasso, sold for a mere $179 million in 2015. To put it in even sharper focus, consider that it cost $216 million to build PNC Park, meaning you could build it twice over and have $18 million to spare before you would reach $450 million. And think about this: $450 million would buy roughly 5,400 single-family homes in Washington valued at $82,000.

Sure, if someone has the Benjamins they’re willing to blow at an art auction, then they should go for it. And there’s no doubt owning a work by Leonard da Vinci, even if its authorship isn’t an iron-clad certainty, confers a certain kind of prestige. It’s not something you can display in your penthouse – most observers believe “Salvador Mundi” will land in a climate-controlled storage facility – but, still, almost all the other known works by Leonardo are in museums. That’s something the new owner of “Salvador Mundi” can lord over his or her friends.

Nevertheless, the price “Salvador Mundi” fetched is a troubling example of the economic inequality that courses through American society, as well as other societies around the world. That someone should have so much disposable income that they can purchase a work of art for almost half-a-billion dollars is disquieting in a world where nearly half the world’s population lives on less than $2.50 per day. Of that, 1.3 billion live on $1.25 a day. It’s estimated 22,000 children die each day because of causes stemming from poverty.

Guy Jennings, managing director of the Fine Art Group, summed it up well when he told Britain’s Guardian newspaper: “The world has not gone mad, the world is mad. It’s a reflection of the massive, massive disproportion of wealth that people are able to play these kinds of games. It is a symptom of a madness which is already there.”