Experts question authenticity of world’s most expensive painting ‘Salvator Mundi’

Salvator Mundi, another of Leonardo Da Vinci’s masterpiece, deemed as the world’s most expensive painting which depicts Jesus Christ as the saviour was reportedly sold at a ground breaking £350 million at auction. Experts however now claims that the painting, valued because of the handiwork by the Italian polymath dating back to c.1500 might not have been done by Da Vinci himself.

This new doubt over the most famous painting came into light two years after it was sold at $ 450 million US dollars reportedly to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman record price in the belief that it was Leonardo’s work.

Now, a new book by art scholar Ben Lewis claims the National Gallery in London asked five experts to examine the portrait in 2008, before its inclusion in the gallery's blockbuster Leonardo exhibition three years later. Lewis, according to Daily Mail writes that just two of the experts were willing to verify that the painting was a genuine Leonardo, a third said it wasn't and two refused to comment. But the gallery reportedly failed to include any of the doubts in the catalogue when it was sold, report claims. 

Michael Daley, director of ArtWatch UK, said, 'We don't think it's a Leonardo and it should not have gone in the exhibition back in 2011.'

But Dr Bendor Grosvenor, who presents the BBC4 series Britain's Lost Masterpieces according to the Daily Mail said he thought there were valid reasons to believe the work was by Leonardo further adding that Leonardo scholars agree that it's by him or at least mostly by him.