Prado Downgrades Salvator Mundi
November 11 2021
Picture: Christie's
Posted by the Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper has published news that the Salvator Mundi has been downgraded in an upcoming exhibition catalogue published by the Prado Museum in Madrid. A new exhibition dedicated to Leonardo and the copy of the Mona Lisa will open at the museum in January 2022. The work has been catalogued as part of the section entitled 'attributed works, workshop or authorised and supervised by Leonardo.' More specifically, the catalogue essay by curator Ana Gonzáles Mozo states that there is 'no painted prototype' by Leonardo.
According to the article:
Mozo proposes that another copy of Salvator Mundi, the so-called Ganay version (1505-15), is the closest to Leonardo’s lost original. Acquired by the marquis de Ganay in 1939, it was sold at Sotheby’s in 1999 and is now in an anonymous private collection. Mozo argues that the skilled workshop artist who painted the Ganay Salvator Mundi was also responsible for the Prado’s early copy of the Mona Lisa (1507-16). Although the catalogue includes a full-page image of the Ganay Salvator Mundi, the Cook version [the Christie's version that sold in 2015] is not even illustrated.
