Salvator Mundi, Latin for Saviour of the World, is a subject in iconography depicting Christ with his right hand raised in blessing and his left hand holding an orb (frequently surmounted by a cross), known as a globus cruciger . The latter symbolizes the Earth, and the whole composition has strong eschatological undertones.
The theme was made popular by Northern painters such as Jan van Eyck, Hans Memling, and Albrecht Dürer. There are also several versions of the theme attributed to Titian, notably the one in the Hermitage Museum.
One painting of the subject, simply titled Salvator Mundi , was attributed or reattributed to Leonardo da Vinci in 2011. This painting disappeared from 1763 until 1900 when it was acquired from Sir Charles Robinson. It was at the time thought to be a work by Leonardo's follower, Bernardino Luini, and was purchased for the Doughty House in Richmond, London by Sir Francis Cook. [1] By this time Christ's face and hair had been extensively repainted. A photograph taken in 1912 records the work's altered appearance. [2] In 2017, this painting sold at auction for US$450,300,000, the highest price ever paid for a painting. [3]
Salvator Mundi has been represented as a central motif in artworks since the 15th century such as:
Hans Memling was a German-Flemish painter who worked in the tradition of Early Netherlandish painting. Born in the Middle Rhine region, he probably spent his childhood in Mainz. During his apprenticeship as a painter he moved to the Netherlands and spent time in the Brussels workshop of Rogier van der Weyden. In 1465 he was made a citizen of Bruges, where he became one of the leading artists and the master of a large workshop. A tax document from 1480 lists him among the wealthiest citizens. Memling's religious works often incorporated donor portraits of the clergymen, aristocrats, and burghers who were his patrons. These portraits built upon the styles which Memling learned in his youth.
Bernardino Luini was a north Italian painter from Leonardo's circle during the High Renaissance. Both Luini and Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio were said to have worked with Leonardo directly; he was described as having taken "as much from Leonardo as his native roots enabled him to comprehend". Consequently, many of his works were attributed to Leonardo. He was known especially for his graceful female figures with elongated eyes, called Luinesque by Vladimir Nabokov.
La Belle Ferronnière is a portrait painting of a lady, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Louvre. It is also known as Portrait of an Unknown Woman. The painting's title, applied as early as the seventeenth century, identifying the sitter as the wife or daughter of an ironmonger, was said to be discreetly alluding to a reputed mistress of Francis I of France, married to a certain Le Ferron. Later she was tentatively identified as Lucretia Crivelli, a married lady-in-waiting to Duchess Beatrice of Milan, who became another of the Duke's mistresses.
The Madonna Litta is a late 15th-century painting, by Leonardo da Vinci, in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. It depicts the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the Christ child, a devotional subject known as the Madonna lactans. The figures are set in a dark interior with two arched openings, as in Leonardo's earlier Madonna of the Carnation, and a mountainous landscape in aerial perspective can be seen beyond. In his left hand Christ holds a goldfinch, which is symbolic of his future Passion.
Jan Provoost, or Jean Provost, or Jan Provost was a Belgian painter born in Mons.
The Madonna of the Yarnwinder is a subject depicted by Leonardo da Vinci in at least one, and perhaps two paintings begun in 1499 or later. Leonardo was recorded as being at work on one such picture in Florence in 1501 for Florimond Robertet, a secretary to King Louis XII of France. This may have been delivered to the French court in 1507, though scholars are divided on this point. The subject is known today from several versions of which two, called the Buccleuch Madonna and the Lansdowne Madonna, are thought to be partly by Leonardo's hand. The underdrawings of both paintings show similar experimental changes made to the composition, suggesting that both evolved concurrently in Leonardo's workshop.
Martin John Kemp is a British art historian and exhibition curator who is one of the world's leading authorities on the life and works of Leonardo da Vinci. The author of many books on Leonardo, Kemp has also written about visualisation in art and science, particularly anatomy, natural sciences and optics. Instrumental in the controversial authentication of Salvator Mundi to Leonardo, Kemp has been vocal on attributions to Leonardo, including support of La Bella Principessa and opposition to the Isleworth Mona Lisa.
Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio was an Italian painter of the High Renaissance from Lombardy, who worked in the studio of Leonardo da Vinci. Boltraffio and Bernardino Luini are the strongest artistic personalities to emerge from Leonardo's studio. According to Giorgio Vasari, he was of an aristocratic family and was born in Milan.
Salvator, original spelling of Salvador, may refer to:
Giampietrino, probably Giovanni Pietro Rizzoli, was a north Italian painter of the Lombard school and Leonardo's circle, succinctly characterized by S. J. Freedberg as an "exploiter of Leonardo's repertory."
The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg is the old masters paintings collection of the city of Strasbourg, located in the Alsace region of France. The museum is housed in the first and second floors of the baroque Palais Rohan since 1898. The museum displays works by non-Upper Rhenish artists from between the 14th century and 1871 and by Upper Rhenish artist from between 1681 and 1871. The museum owned 1,934 works as of 31 December 2015, this number has substantially increased since. The old masters from the upper-Rhenish area until 1681 are exhibited in the neighboring Musée de l’Œuvre Notre-Dame.
Salvator Mundi is a painting attributed in whole or in part to the Italian High Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to c. 1499–1510. Long thought to be a copy of a lost original veiled with overpainting, it was rediscovered, restored, and included in an exhibition of Leonardo's work at the National Gallery, London, in 2011–2012. Christie's, which sold the work in 2017, stated that most leading scholars consider it an original work by Leonardo, but this attribution has been disputed by other leading specialists, some of whom propose that he only contributed certain elements; others believe that the extensive restoration prevents a definitive attribution.
Earthly Vanity and Divine Salvation is a 1480s painting by the German-born citizen of Bruges, Hans Memling. It is on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is 185.
Salvator Mundi is a religious painting by Italian Renaissance artist Palma Vecchio, dated to c. 1518-1522. It is on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France.
Christ Triumphant over Sin and Death, also known as Christ Triumphant over Death and Sin, or sometimes as Salvator Mundi, is a circa 1618 oil painting by the Flemish Baroque artist Peter Paul Rubens. It is on display in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is 235.
Landscape with Tobias and the Angel is a large Baroque landscape painting created ca. 1670 by the Southern Italian painter Salvator Rosa. Although principally a landscape painting, it elevates its status to a history painting by including the small figures of Tobias and the Angel, a Christian subject from the Book of Tobit, with the fish from the river Tigris. The painting is now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is 182.
Luke Syson is an English museum curator and art historian. Since 2019, he has been the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, prior to which he held positions at the British Museum (1991–2002), the Victoria and Albert Museum (2002–2003), the National Gallery (2003–2012) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art (2015–2019). In 2011 he curated the acclaimed Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Gallery: Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, which included his pivotal role in the controversial authentication by the National Gallery of da Vinci's Salvator Mundi.
Vincent Delieuvin is a French author and art historian specializing in the work of Leonardo da Vinci, and in Italian paintings of the sixteenth century, generally. Since 2006, he has worked as a heritage curator at the Louvre museum.
Christ Pantocrator is a tempera painting created by Ieremias Palladas. Ieremias was associated with Saint Catherine's sacred monastery in Egypt also known as Mount Sinai. He was a Sinaitic monk, painter, and teacher. His nephew Gerasimos Palladas became the Patriarch of Alexandria. There was a dependency of Saint Catherine's Monastery which was in Mount Sinai, Egypt on the island of Crete which was called Saint Catherine's Monastery of Heraklion. The site in Egypt was believed by Christians to be the site where Moses saw the burning bush. The Patriarch of Jerusalem Nectarius wrote about the painter in his archives because Ieremias was one of the most influential figures of his time.
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