Shamhat Meets Leonardo Da Vinci - Salvator Mundi (1500)
Description
This painting is entitled Salvator Mundi (Savior of the World) which was painted by Leonardo da Vinci in 1500. This painting depicts the divinity of Jesus, as the “Savior of the World.” Although Da Vinci's most famous work is the Mona Lisa, it seems that Salvator Mundi's work is Da Vinci's most expensive work of art. This painting was purchased for $450.3 million dollars (equivalent to 6.5 trillion rupiah) at a Christie's auction in New York in 2017. This work was purchased by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Prince Muhammad bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Al-Sa'ud. The purchase of the Salvator Mundi painting made it the most expensive work of art in world history. It is an irony that a country based on Wahhabism whose puritan attitude has so far prohibited the drawing of human faces and often the Wahhabi doctrine being intolerant toward non-Muslims. But who would have thought that the buyer of the most expensive art work was the future king of Saudi Arabia and the painting he bought was a painting of Jesus.