Then we look at the condition, and we base the condition on what's in our hands, and how you look at a book thats 150, 170 years old. "And it is involved therefore in the politics around culture. One of the most famous paintings in the world, the Last Supper was commissioned by Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan and Leonardo's patron during his first stay in that city, for the Dominican monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie. We know quite a bit about Leonardo's life from a mini-biography by Giorgio Vasari, a Leonardo fanboy and the world's first art historian.Born a nobody, Leonardo was a charismatic and complicated man self confident and not, driven and not, distracted and not. The most famous paintings, especially old master works created before 1803, are generally owned or held at museums, for viewing by patrons. While Hammer was alive, we reported that Oxy shareholders sued three times asking to be reimbursed for what Hammer spent on art and the museum. The film doesn't take a stand on the painting's attribution, but makes it clear that museums, dealers and potential buyers had millions to gain along with incalculable prestige by choosing to believe it is a true Leonardo. That he gave up both projects seems to indicate that he had deeper reasons for leaving Florence. WINSTON: So once we've deduced that it's a first edition because it meets all of this criteria. TINDERA: Slicing up and selling off a beautiful manuscript or book is not without precedent, though, Robert explained to us. The unique fame that Leonardo enjoyed in his lifetime and that, filtered by historical criticism, has remained undimmed to the present day rests largely on his unlimited desire for knowledge, which guided all his thinking and behaviour. It would not draw more than the Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million. "I'm absolutely sure that six months down the road or a year, there's going to be some kind of new information, whether true or not, that's going to blow up everywhere in the news media," Dalsgaard says. Six-million five hundred thousand, seven million. And we're going to show you how we narrowed that range to settle on one number. So, they decided to hold an auction through Christie's, and it took place in London in December 1980. In the film, the art historian Frank Zllner, who has compiled a catalogue raisonn of Leonardo's paintings, wryly calls the Salvator Mundi "a masterpiece by Dianne Modestini," who made it "more Leonardesque than Leonardo had done." Two new documentaries delve into the ongoing saga of Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi in a moment when true art crime stories are at their peak, writes Caryn James. Here are 20 of Leonardo da Vinci's most famous paintings: Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. The 16th-century writer Giorgio Vasari indicated that Leonardo cared little for money but was very generous toward his friends and assistants. Self Portrait by Leonardo da Vinci. And that was the process. She was universally considered to be the painter's sitter. In Verrocchios renowned workshop Leonardo received a multifaceted training that included painting and sculpture as well as the technical-mechanical arts. And Lewis points out that as the art market has enlarged, our world view itself has changed. In the past year two documentaries, the engaging Made You Look and the pedestrian Driven to Abstraction, tackled the case of the Knoedler Gallery in New York, which for nearly two decades sold forgeries supposedly by 20th-Century masters including Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock. The sale places Salvator Mundi as the highest-priced work sold privately or at auction, including Pablo Picassos 1955 Women of Algiers (Version O), sold for $179.4m, and Amedeo Modiglianis 1917-18 Reclining Nude, sold for $170.4m. He's gone to extra lengths to make this work as a whole more accessible to the public. His father, Ser Piero, was a Florentine notary and landlord, and his mother, Caterina, was a young peasant woman who shortly thereafter married an artisan. And if Gates himself had the Codex appraised since he bought it. It next appeared at a Sotheby's in England in 1958 where it sold for 45 - about $125 at the time. His curiosity and insatiable hunger for knowledge never left him. Most observers agree that it is likely stashed in the Middle East, but some have speculated that it is stored in a tax-free zone in Geneva or even on the Prince's half-a-billion-dollar yacht. With closing fees from the auction house, it came out to $30.8 million. And my enjoyment in owning these wonderful works of art. Also of note is the decorative ceiling painting (1498) he made for the Sala delle Asse in the Milan Castello Sforzesco. TINDERA: Gates is up against a group from a bank in Milan thats sitting in the front of the Christie's salesroom. Exact price (even the currency of sale) is not known, with estimates from $250 million to $300 million, Within weeks after a private viewing in Vienna in September 2012, Rybolovlev agreed to pay $183.8 million via his dealer Bouvier. He also did not apply himself to higher mathematicsadvanced geometry and arithmeticuntil he was 30 years old, when he began to study it with diligent tenacity. TINDERA: Robert pointed out one other unique distinction. Oprah Winfrey had bought the painting in November 2006 at Christie's for nearly $88 million. Trained in Florence as a painter and sculptor in the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio (1435-1488), Leonardo is also celebrated for his scientific contributions. Leonardo devoted 12 yearswith interruptionsto this task. Steve Wynn, who bid on the painting at auction, privately acquired the work several months later from the unidentified buyer for an undisclosed, supposedly lower price. As of 2023, Leonardo da Vinci's net worth is $320 million. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The work, thought to be a 500-year-old portait of Madonna and child, is potentially worth over $150 million (100 million) if experts are able to prove its authenticity. That boosted this forgotten painting into the limelight and kickstarted the. Any more? But no one thought it was still worth the $30.8 million Gates paid for it. MICHELA TINDERA: So its 1994, and were listening to an auction in a salesroom at Christie's in Manhattan. Last Supper, Italian Cenacolo, one of the most famous artworks in the world, painted by Leonardo da Vinci probably between 1495 and 1498 for the Dominican monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In 1493 the clay model of the horse was put on public display on the occasion of the marriage of Emperor Maximilian to Bianca Maria Sforza, and preparations were made to cast the colossal figure, which was to be 16 feet (5 metres) high. Five are traditional Chinese paintings by Qi Baishi, Wu Bin, Wang Meng and Xu Yang. The final winning bid? Christie's billed the painting as an original work by Leonardo da Vinci himself. We asked Robert, if the Codex if it went up for sale again, could it compete with the Mundi's price? What was Leonardo da Vincis personality like? Many factors seem to have converged to create this flourishing moment for true art crime. DARREN WINSTON: Once we've decided that the book is worth looking at for its condition, for its provenance. And seeing these works enjoyed by people all over the world. And trying to balance them And of course, one of the things in doing an appraisal like this is you just don't put them in a mix, whatever. That estimate sort of got you thinking in another direction, though, right Chase? Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. TINDERA: But admittedly, Darren told us that he wasn't a da Vinci, or Codex expert and was hesitant to put a value on it out of the gate. Scholars have been unable to agree in their attributions of these works. Since the painting first arrived at the Louvre in 1815, "Mona Lisa" has received plenty of love letters and flowers from admirers. A Malevich Suprematist Composition sold for $85.8 million at Christies, breaking the record for a work of Russian art. PETERSON-WITHORN: And the fifth was a drawing by Michelangelo called The Holy Family with the Infant St. John the Baptist, which also sold to the Getty Museum in 1993, for $6.3 million. In 1993, Simon was hired by the trustees of the Armand Hammer Museum to do an appraisal of the Codex back when it was known as the Codex Hammer. PETERSON-WITHORN: After the auction, he told the press, I'm very happy with the price. His was the last name on the 1988 provenance list; painting came from "a private collection in Arizona". In both films, Luke Syson, the curator of the show, stands by his decision. Rybolovlevs spokesman, Brian Cattell, told the Wall Street Journal the family hoped the sale will finally bring to an end a very painful chapter. Six million dollars, thank you. The abrupt $20m and $30m jumps in price were indeed unusual, Cerutti confirmed. The bidding then resumed: $353m, $355m. He said that he would guess that if the Codex were to go up for auction again, the auction estimate for the item might be $150 million. TINDERA: So back in November 1994, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates was 39 years old and pretty much at the top of his game. A scene from Saviour for Sale, a second documentary about the Salvator Mundi, by French journalist Antoine Vitkine (Credit: Zadig Productions). The Virgin and Child with St Anne by Leonardo da Vinci. Simon's connection to the painting is that back in 2005, he and a colleague actually sort of rediscovered the painting, which was in terrible condition. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. ", Auction Records Fall at Phillipss Sale of Contemporary Masters, "Fernand Lger (18811955), Contraste de formes", "Warmer Response at Sotheby's 2nd Night of Auctions", "Hong Kong Billionaire Lau Sets Two Records in 24 Hours", Led by $66M Van Gogh, Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Sale Robustly Kicks Off Season, "Willem de Kooning (19041997), Untitled XXV", "Wang Meng painting auction for $62 million", "A Petite $69 Million Picasso Leads Sotheby's Solid $189 Million Impressionist Sale in London", "Property from a Distinguished Private Collection Pablo Picasso Femme Au Bret Et La Robe Quadrille (Marie-Thrse Walter)", Getty breaks record with $65.1-million purchase of Manet's 'Spring', As Stocks Fall, Art Surges at a $315.8 Million Sale, Claude Monet's "Le Bassin aux nymphas" auction results, A Zao Wou-Ki painting sold for $65 million, breaking records for a work by an Asian artist, Zao Wou-Ki's "Juin-Octobre 1985" auction results, The Most Expensive Paintings ever sold list by theartwolf, Oeuvres d'art les plus dispendieuses au monde, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_most_expensive_paintings&oldid=1140779647, Private Collection, New York, United States, This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 19:17. Paintings are listed only once, i.e. But now the Salvator Mundi has become the poster boy for the volatile mix of money, power and geopolitics that defines the art world today. He also pulled together a list of artwork that he found it to be similar to. PETERSON-WITHORN: Two were da Vinci drawings of draperies. Leonardo never married, but he had many close relationships with other artists and intellectuals as well as with his assistants. All episodes of the Art Bust podcast are available now. Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci. ", Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi was sold by Christie's in 2017 for a record-breaking $450 million (Credit: Photo by Ilya S Savenok/Getty Images for Christie's Auction House). Before Rybolovlev, Salvator Mundi had been owned by a consortium of dealers including Alexander Parish, who had picked it up for $10,000 at an estate sale in the US in 2005, and had had it restored and authenticated. The rest are owned by museums around the world. It then becomes a first edition of Moby Dick. She tells BBC Culture, "Since then, Dianne Modestini continued to work on it. But as it turned out, he also had his own personal connection to the Codex. In this episode, we're taking you inside the world of rare books, manuscripts, and Old Masters works to tell you about how we've estimated the value of one very special notebook, with ties to the world's most expensive painting ever sold at auction: the Salvator Mundi. For this notebook, we considered values ranging from $50 million, all the way up to $4 billion. It's now been determined that his painting is not, in fact, a da Vinci. Leonardo da Vinci not only developed his skill in drawing, painting and sculpting during his apprenticeship, but through others working in and around the studio, he picked up knowledge in such diverse fields as mechanics, carpentry, metallurgy, architectural drafting and chemistry. The two documentaries arrive at a time when films, podcasts and pop culture itself seem fascinated by art crimes, mysteries and forgeries. But some have said that's because he was left-handed, and he didnt want his ink to smear. Biography Of Leonardo da Vinci: How Old Is Leonardo da Vinci | Net Worth | People ProfilesPeople Profiles is a channel that dives deep into the lives of some. There's also something called primacy, which is being the first. According to the Christie's auction catalogue for the 1994 sale, the Codex was described as being in good and stable condition. The disciples, devastated by Christ stating one of them would cause his death, convey their feelings dramatically through their body language. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man (c. 1490) has also become a cultural icon. At the same time, Bouvier was negotiating and eventually succeeded to buy the painting for $112 million from Ursula Ucicky, widow of, Some fear existed, that Portrait of Dr. Gachet had been cremated with the owner in 1996, but Gachet's portrait was privately resold to. By 1508, Leonardo returned to Milan, working for the French rulers of the city. During this period Leonardo worked on a grandiose sculptural project that seems to have been the real reason he was invited to Milan: a monumental equestrian statue in bronze to be erected in honour of Francesco Sforza, the founder of the Sforza dynasty. Life of Leonardo da Vinci, a Short Biography 1. On permanent display at the Louvre in Paris, the Mona Lisa was assessed at US$100 million on 14 December 1962. SIMON: And if you look at the illuminated manuscripts that are from, you know, missiles, and you know, these are Renaissance manuscripts, many of them have been broken apart. TINDERA: Right. Using monthly averages gives slightly different numbers, most significantly for paintings sold early or late in a year with significant inflation. The earliest sale on the list below (Vase with Fifteen Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh) is from March 1987; with a price of 24.75 million (74.1 million in 2021 currency). As everyone who does not live in utter isolation knows, a painting of Christ known as the "Salvator Mundi" ("Savior of the World") by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci was. Whereas Picasso and Warhol became wealthy men, van Gogh is known to have sold only one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard, for 400 French francs (approximately $2,000 in 2018 dollars) in 1890, to the Belgian impressionist painter and heiress Anna Boch. And that's the number we're using to value it. Contemporary art, Mould told the Guardian, is where all the big money is. According to the provenance in the auction catalogue, a few Italian artists own the Codex after da Vinci's death, including a painter named Giuseppe Ghezzi, who apparently sold it in 1717 to Thomas Coke, a man who eventually became England's Earl of Leicester. So, I think we could legitimately set the floor at that price. TINDERA: Okay, so to recap, when it sold in 1980, it was expected to sell for $10 million, but ended up going for half that. He was also frequently consulted as a technical adviser in the fields of architecture, fortifications, and military matters, and he served as a hydraulic and mechanical engineer. Its the last painting by Leonardo, the greatest of all Renaissance artists, and it had an appeal to collectors from all parts of the world., Every major scholar of Leonardos work accepts the picture and has for the past decade, he said, addressing questions over the paintings authenticity and condition, adding: Its not in flawless condition, its 500 years old and absolutely has the presence and condition of a true Leonardo.. And it was a challenge. The image of Christ as The Saviour of the World was billed as The Last da Vinci at Christie's 2017 auction, where it sold for a record $450 million (342 million) to a proxy for bin Salman (yes, that bin Salman, whom the CIA found responsible for ordering the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi). Therell never be another painting that I shall sell for more than this painting tonight.. There are all sorts of factors that come into play: condition, provenance. Leonardo Da Vinci 1503 It was kept it at the Palace at Fontainebleau, where it remained until King Louis XIV moved the painting to the Palace of Versailles. Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is one of the most intriguing personalities in the history of Western art. The Return to Italy - the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre Museum in 1911. But Christie's declined to comment, and a spokesperson for Gates never responded to our questions. We felt that offering this painting within the context of our postwar and contemporary evening sale is a testament to the enduring relevance of this picture.. There are more and more platforms for telling stories. Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought it that year, and 14 years later, Gates bought it at another auction. Because at the end of the day, it's an entertaining story.". Since the museums rarely sell them, they are considered priceless. One of my hats I wearI'm a capitalist. At the height of the auction, as many of six bidders were in play. Alan Wintermute, a senior specialist in old master paintings at Christies in London, called it the holy grail of old masters. I wana write a poem about it. So Gates buying Leonardo da Vinci's notebook is the equivalent of a typical 66-year-old splurging ona new iPad. However, weeks after the grand opening of his museum, where he planned to showcase the Codex and other art he had collected over the years, Hammer died at the age of 92. It's worth at least what Gates paid for it. Quiz: Ancient Illustrations Showing Us the Way, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leonardo-da-Vinci, Social Studies for Kids - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Humanities LibreTexts - Leonardo da Vinci, Art Encyclopedia - Biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, University of California Museum of Paleontology - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Web Gallery of Art - Biography of Leonardo da Vinci, Leonardo da Vinci - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Leonardo da Vinci - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up), Art and accomplishment: Leonardo as artist-scientist, Art and accomplishment: Painting and drawing. Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper. A Leonardo, even one as dulled as this, could prove an amusing conversation piece. So Gates sort of went out and bought the ultimate book. The series is full of conspiracy theories about the never-solved robbery. That sold for $3.6 million at Sotheby's in New York in 1986. Gifted with a curious mind and a brilliant. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). But there would, there are people in the world that would probably do that. Or is it? So it's difficult to get much better than someone who has actually appraised an item. [13][14], Among the listed top 89, only six are paintings by non-Western artists. Leonardo da Vinci paintings that is on public display in the Western Hemisphere. For example, on June 25, 2019, the American hedge fund manager J. Tomilson Hill bought a recently rediscovered Judith and Holofernes (1607) attributed to Caravaggio, two days before it would have been auctioned in Toulouse. Updates? Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. CBS CLIP, BILL GATES: Well, that's simply based on taking the stock I own in Microsoft and doing some type of multiplication. Love film and TV? Freeman's was founded in 1805, and is actually America's oldest auction house. "A Botticelli Portrait Sells for $92 Million at Sotheby's Auction", "Christie's 'Secret Weapon' in Rockefeller's 'Sale of the Century' | Auctions News | THE VALUE | Art News", "Claude Monet (18401926), Nymphas en fleur", Greatest German Renaissance Madonna sold by prince, Vincent van Gogh (18531890) Laboureur dans un champ, U.K. Buys Titian Diana Painting for 50 Million Pounds, Titian deal paves way for next acquisition, "Mark Rothko: No. Nineteen million on the telephone. Months earlier, he had appeared on the cover of Forbes, and he was a member of our very first Forbes 400 ranking. 9. Re-sold for 12m to Stavros Niarchos in 1993. Probably, they knew there was room before the end of the competition., They wanted to get the job done quicker, but it still took a long time.. PETERSON-WITHORN: In the end, we decided to take the average of all the recommendations we got from our expert sources. People who often would never get a chance to visit the great museums of the world. From about 1483 to 1486, he worked on the altar painting The Virgin of the Rocks, a project that led to 10 years of litigation between the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, which commissioned it, and Leonardo; for uncertain purposes, this legal dispute led Leonardo to create another version of the work in about 1508. This time, though, it sold for three times that in the battle we heard about at the beginning of the episode between Gates and the Italian bank. On November 20, 2014 at Sotheby's, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art bought her 1932 painting Jimson Weed/White Flower No. I'm an art dealer in New York. See a gallery of the world's most expensive paintings, Leonardo da Vincis Salvator Mundi sold for $400 million at Christies ($450.3m, including auction house premium), One of four versions of The Scream created by Munch and the only one that is privately owned. At the press conference, Artnews reported, Gouzer spoke of the exceptional rarity of a work by Leonardo. The ensuing war left the clay model a heap of ruins. Billionaires just live in a different world. Leonardo grew up on his fathers familys estate, where he was treated as a legitimate son and received the usual elementary education of the day: reading, writing, and arithmetic. And then there's also rarity, or how rare this exact copy or version of a book or manuscript is. PETERSON-WITHORN: The person who ended up winning the auction was Armand Hammer, the 82-year-old multimillionaire chairman of oil and gas giant Occidental Petroleum. Inside besides da Vinci's writings, there are also about 360 drawings and diagrams throughout the manuscript. Both sold at Sotheby's in Monaco on the same date in 1989. SIMON: These went into the mix. Leonardo da Vinci was described as having a gracious but reserved personality and an elegant bearing. His notebooks reveal a spirit of scientific inquiry and a mechanical inventiveness that were centuries ahead of their time. TINDERA: Robert Simon is perhaps best known in the art world for having a very close connection to a painting that is synonymous with money, power and controversy: the Salvator Mundi. For those who don't know it, it's a painting of Christ that sold at a Christie's auction in 2017 for $450 million, which is by far the most expensive work of art that's ever sold at auction. Bin Salman himself visited President Emmanuel Macron in Paris while the loan was dangling in the balance. At $28 million it's away from the room now and on the telephone at $28 million. It depicts the dramatic scene described in several closely connected moments in the Gospels, including Matthew 26: . PETERSON-WITHORN: Yeah, when I heard about that $12 million sale, I remembered that the Codex had about 360 illustrations inside of it. The painting sold for $119,922,500, Picassos Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) sold at Christie's in New York for $106,482,500, Lhomme qui Marche I (1961) by Alberto Giacometti sold for 65,001,250 ($105,182,398) at Sothebys in London, Picassos Boy With a Pipe (1905) sold at Sotheby's in New York for $104,168,000, Gustav Klimts Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II (1912)went under the hammer at Christies New York and sold for $87,936,000, Francis Bacons Triptych (1976) sold for $85.9m to oligarch Roman Abramovich, A Chinese 18th century Qianlong dynasty porcelain vase sold for 53,100,000 ($85,921,461) at Bainbridges auction house in London, Dora Maar au Chat (1941) by Pablo Picasso sold for 51,560,080 ($83,429,503) at Sotheby's in London, Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet (1890) by Vincent van Gogh sold for $82,500,000 (50,985,692) at Christies in New York, Thank you all for your bidding, said Pylkknen. CHASE PETERSON-WITHORN: Hi, Michela. And then amid all of this, he buys this one-of-a-kind Leonardo da Vinci manuscript at a Christie's auction for $28 million. In The Lost Leonardo, a grinning Bouvier says his exploits are just business as usual: "you buy low and you sell high." And how does that help us come up with a number for today? The alleged vandalism attempt on Sunday left the painting's glass covered in cake frosting. Five-point-five million dollars to start. The Salvator Mundi can be exhibited, and if it goes to a museum in Saudi Arabia, and people travel there and go to see it, I mean, it would have in terms of that income value I was talking about, it would have, you know, a phenomenal one, you know, perhaps quite in excess of the $450 million that it brought at auction. Its the zenith of my career as an auctioneer. Then I went to those other items that were of kind of the same rarity as works of the Renaissance that had been on the market. Art restorer Dianne Modestini in a scene from The Lost Leonardo, one of two new documentaries about the Salvator Mundi (Credit: Sony Pictures Classics/Entertainment Pictures). Amid all of that the Codex went back to Christie's in 1994, where it was once again expected to bring $10 million. Why do bad things happen to I expected to pay much more. MASSEY: Twenty-five million, twenty-six million. Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021. Like we did earlier in this episode, he considered the price that it sold for in 1980. He also worked in the next-door workshop of artist Antonio Pollaiuolo. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. MASSEY: Nineteen-million five hundred thousand I'll be happy to take. 1503-1519). But he went even beyond that. When asked whether Salvator Mundis involvement in the Rybolovlev-Bouvier case might overshadow its sale, Christies postwar and contemporary chairman, Loc Gouzer, who secured the work with a $100m guarantee, said: We cannot comment about sellers, but it has every passport, every visa.. Last Supper (c. 1495-98) Leonardo da Vinci: Last Supper Images Group/REX/Shutterstock.com. They arrive in the wake of Ben Lewis's high-profile 2019 book, The Last Leonardo, and dozens of articles. They bought it from an auction in Louisiana for just over $1,000. Finding a new one is rarer than finding a new planet, he said. It is Oil on wood and measures 168 x 130 cm (5 1/2 x 4 1/2 ft.). St John the Baptist by Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardos artistic inclinations must have appeared early. Guinness World Records lists Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa as having the highest ever insurance value for a painting. And then amid. The general attitude toward art crime, he says, used to be shrugged off as "it's billionaires spending money, crooking each other", but today there is a realisation that "no, you can't loot that country's entire cultural heritage". Taking inflation into account, the 1962 value would be around US$900 million in 2021.[3]. While dozens of manuscripts like the Codex have managed to survive the centuries intact, the Codex Leicester is the only da Vinci notebook that is still in private hands. But if our maximum value isn't $4 billion, then what is it? Salvator Mundi, the long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ commissioned by King Louis XII of France more than 500 years ago, has sold at Christie's in New York for $450.3m . TINDERA: Simon shared with us his own process for how he estimated the fair market value in the appraisal he put together nearly 30 years ago. Leonardo da Vinci was a Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, inventor, military engineer and draftsman the epitome of a true Renaissance man. PETERSON-WITHORN: Yeah, and Gates loves books. What is Leonardo da Vinci best known for? TINDERA: Right. And so, the first place we looked were the auction records for the Codex from the 1980 and the 1994 sales. This list is ordered by consumer price index inflation-adjusted value (in bold) in millions of United States dollars in 2021. Leonardo did not seriously study Latin, the key language of traditional learning, until much later, when he acquired a working knowledge of it on his own. What was Leonardo da Vincis family like? One sold for nearly $6 million, and the other for $5.2 million. And my background is as an art historian. On June 11, 2017, Ms. Gund revealed that she intended to use the proceeds from the sale of the painting for a specific purpose: to create a fund that supports criminal justice reform and seeks to reduce mass incarceration in the United States. The quality of the painting itself divides people. But one tries to lay out in a rational way, why one has a higher value than the other, why one has a lesser market appeal, and then try from that to come up with a single value.