NEW YORK - The Wall Street Journal today unveils Saudi Arabia's secret plans for the most expensive painting in history. The Salvator Mundi could end up in a museum still to be built at the gates of Riad. According to the high finance bible, this museum would be part of a billion dollar plan that involves the construction of at least 12 new artistic institutions.
The portrait of Christ blessing attributed to Leonardo, at the center of a yellow on the identity of its true buyer in November 2017 by Christie's, disappeared from circulation after the auction in which he was beaten for over 450 million dollars. The painting should have been exhibited since September 2018 at the Louvre in Abu Dhabi, but that project ended without explanation on a dead track between voices that placed Leonardo on the "thousand and one night" yacht of the strong man of Riad, the crown prince Mohammed bin Salman. "The new Saudi ministry of culture will keep the picture in storage until it can build a museum on purpose," writes the Wall Street Journal, citing well-informed sources.
The plans are part of a vast initiative to transform Saudi Arabia into a new international artistic hub in ten years in the hope of attracting tourists and adding at least $ 27 billion to the country's economy. The project has an Italian angle: Stefano Carboni, former curator of the Islamic arts department of the Metropolitan of New York, is the CEO of the new Saudi Commission for museums. He is thinking of building a museum of western art with the Salvator Mundi in the center next to another museum of Islamic art, he explained to the Wall Street Journal: "It is a matter of perceptions. What would you say about the Saudi identity if we put that painting on a poster? ".
The ambivalence on how and where to exhibit the Salvator Mundi reflects wider tensions on the cultural identity of the kingdom in the desert: the picture with a clear Christian iconography could be a provocation in a country that is proudly considered the cradle of Islam. The new thrust into the art world, again according to the Wall Street Journal, is part of an effort to diversify a hitherto dependent oil economy. Director of the operation would be the new Minister of Culture, Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, to whom the Crown Prince Mbs would entrust the mandates to strengthen ties with the world of international art. Bader, who made the winning bet on Salvator Mundi three years ago, recently bought works by Pablo Picasso, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama and David Hockney at auctions.