According to him, the purchase was a gamble. And he also considered that he must not speak about the actual price and the exact origin of the Painting. The Sotheby’s auction house banned him. It comes from the estate of a deceased person who had no contact with the art scene. Simon is an elegant and extremely friendly gentleman. There is a hint of melancholy in his mischievous smile. Together with his art dealer colleague Alexander Parish, he decides to give the painting a chance. They agree on a limit, and Parish wins it over the phone. None of them went to the auction. A Christian motif that was in great demand around 1500 north and south of the Alps, Salvator Mundi, the savior of the world. Simon is an art historian, restorer, and president of the “Private Art Dealers Association”. And off-side auctions are his hunting ground. Simon had discovered the blurred image of a portrait of Christ in the online catalog of a local auctioneer in Louisiana. The package that the UPS courier is delivering on the fourth floor of 22 East 80th Street on New York’s Upper East Side had not been handled with care. When Robert Simon unpacked it that day in spring 2005, the frame of the delivered painting was broken. But that doesn’t bother the art dealer for old masters. He is relieved to find that there is something like a painting in the box.
Who was so crazy to flip this sum over for such a venture? Who was the opponent who had offered up to $ 370 million? And what is it about the painting that has the strength to make the already crazy art market hit such a caper? Salvetor Mundi in The Hand of Old Master Dealer
Christie’s in New York is awesome at $ 400 million – including fees, the painting costs 450.3 million which put this piece of art on the top of the list of the most expensive paintings in the world. The next day the photo of “Salvator Mundi” is emblazoned on the front pages of the newspapers and the world is puzzled. It took six years to turn an anonymous painting into an original by Leonardo da Vinci. And just 19 minutes to turn it into the most expensive work of art of all time.