Five hundred years after its origin, Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi donned a new avatar- NFT. The world’s most expensive painting, which belongs to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and is stored in an unrevealed location, broke auction records when it sold for $450 million at Christie’s New York. In the digitized era, ElmonX will mint the NFT of the painting starring Christ with a crystal orb in collaboration with the image licensing company Bridgeman Images.
“[As] the world’s leading specialists in licensing fine art, cultural, and historical media for reproduction, [we] are delighted to collaborate with ElmonX, experts at the forefront of NFT art creation,” Bridgeman Images said in a statement. The partnership offers a “unique and exclusive opportunity to create high-quality NFTs based on Bridgeman Images’ vast collection.”
The company has minted NFTs for legendary paintings, such as Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Auguste Rodin’s The Thinker, and Claude Monet’s Nymphéas. How could the world’s most expensive painting not be a part of this impressive ensemble?
Presuming they were trouncing the Qataris the Art-obsessed Saudis paid tens of millions extra for Salvatore Mundi
It was vendetta at its finest at a Christie’s auction in New York in 2017 when Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ broke new records owing to old dissensions. Saudi Prince Bader bin Abdullah locked horns with Ruler Mohammed Bin Zayed. Little did he know that the ruler belonged to the United Arab Emirates and not Qatar, but it was too late as after an unyielding bidding war, Prince Bader bought the illustrious painting for MBS for a record-breaking $450 million?
Fear of losing the auction to the Qatari ruling family pushed the Arab rulers not to see reason or price. ‘The bidding started to get high, and each of them thought they were bidding against the Qataris and didn’t want them to get it,’ said one source close to the Emirati leader to Daily Mail. ‘So they gave their proxies instructions, saying, ‘You can go as high as you want; just make sure you get it.’
Crown prince MBS’ Serene Megayacht may be housing the $450 million painting-
Crown Prince MBS bought Serene, a $400 million superyacht, and added a $450 million legendary artwork to the marvelous creation. The 439 feet Fincantieri vessel is a mammoth with seven decks and 4,500 square meters of interior space designed by Pascale Reymond. According to Al Jazeera,
Mohammed bin Salman hung the asset on a cabin wall on the pleasure craft. Both purchases together amount to over $1 billion. One may think this painting doesn’t deserve to be hung in an oblivious cabin; it deserves a museum. That’s exactly the plan the visionary Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia had in mind. The 37-year-old royal is constructing a dedicated gallery to display the Da Vinci masterpiece in his home country.
