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The Last Leonardo

The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting

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The Last Leonardo

By: Ben Lewis
Narrated by: Peter Noble
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About this listen

In 2017 the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. But is it a real da Vinci? In a thrilling narrative built on formidable research, Ben Lewis tracks the extraordinary journey of a masterpiece lost and found, lied and fought over across the centuries.

In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting, the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction for $450m. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as saviour of the world is ‘the rarest thing on the planet by the greatest human being who ever lived’. Its dazzling price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting.

For two centuries art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the first half of the sixteenth century. But where was the original by the master himself?

In November 2017, Christie’s auction house announced they had it. But did they? The Last Leonardo tells a thrilling tale of a spellbinding icon invested with the power to make or break the reputations of scholars, billionaires, kings and sheikhs. Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Holland, Moscow and Louisiana; to the galleries, salerooms and restorer’s workshop as the painting slowly, painstakingly, emerged from obscurity. The vicissitudes of the highly secretive art market are charted across five centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, where we’re never quite certain what to believe. Above all, it is an adventure story about the search for lost treasure, and a quest for the truth.

©2019 Ben Lewis (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers
Art Corruption & Misconduct Home & Garden Italy Inspiring

Critic Reviews

"The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail." (Charles Nicholl, Guardian)

"Forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting.... Through his fascinating and persuasive account, Lewis remains balanced; the Salvator Mundi might be exactly what its supporters claim it to be, even though it sits in 'a pool of theories, surrounded by a tangle of conjecture, suspended from a geometry of clues'." (Sunday Times)

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Last third better than first two thirds

Given the rave reviews this book has attracted, I was surprised to find I had to force myself to finish it. To me it was confusing with numerous paintings/contenders, potential artists/students/copiers, owners, dealers, restorations, over-paintings, sales, auctions, claims, counterclaims, experts, profiteers, and fraudsters. What's more, given that so much of the book is about fine details of the painting/s in question, it doesn't work all that well as an audiobook. Things did get simpler toward the end of the book and I was glad I finished it, but a hard copy with an index of names and colour plates might be the best way to read this book. That said, Ben Lewis has done a huge amount of research and his experience and expertise in the field make his a voice worth hearing (although I feel that throwing in irrelevant gratuitous Russia-bashing remarks is unworthy of him). Peter Noble is an excellent narrator and his evident facility with foreign language pronunciations makes him the perfect choice for this story whose scope ranges around the globe.

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