GUESS WHERE THAT $450 MILLION LEONARDO IS GOING...?

The Louvre Abu Dhabi tweeted out a very simple message today: 

“Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi is coming to #LouvreAbuDhabi.”

The museum’s official Twitter account posted the message in three languages: English, Arabic, and French.

An odd way for such a big piece of news to be revealed. The somewhat contested painting has been the subject of intense speculation since its sale at Christie’s two weeks ago to a mystery buyer made it the most expensive painting EVER.

Following the Louvre’s initial tweet, Christie’s retweeted the message, adding their own: 

“Congratulations — the Salvator Mundi is going to its new home the @LouvreAbuDhabi.”

All a Christie’s spokesperson would say was, 

“We are delighted that the work will again be on public view. We have no further information.”

The Louvre nor the Louvre Abu Dhabi replied immediately when asked for further details on the social media posts. Last week, Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez set the art world rumor mill abuzz with his comment to a radio interviewer in France suggesting he was looking forward to seeing Salvator Mundi hanging alongside Mona Lisa soon. At the time of that story, a Louvre spokesperson told artnet News: 

“The Louvre is currently working on the list of the loans for the Leonardo da Vinci 2019 exhibition. It is too early to communicate on that list.”

The Louvre Abu Dhabi opened last month just days before the Salvator Mundi sale.

(via ArtNet)

PHOTOGRAPHER PAYS HOMAGE TO RENAISSANCE PAINTERS USING AUTO MECHANIC MODELS

Photographer Freddy Fabris created these updated versions of famous Renaissance paintings after the idea came to him during a visit to a garage. He perfectly represents the distinctive style of great Renaissance master painters like Rembrandt & Leonardo daVinci in these reverent recreations. Talk about Renaissance men...

(Photos, Freddy Fabris; via Brightside)

WAS THE MONA LISA BASED ON DAVINCI'S GAY LOVER?

One art historian thinks so. He thinks he’s cracked the code to the Mona Lisa's elusive smile was inspired by da Vinci’s gay lover.

Art historian Silvano Vinceti, after examining an infra-red analysis of the famous painting, claims that the was based on two people in da Vinci’s life: a rich Tuscan merchant’s wife, Lisa Gherardini, as most historians would agree and the artist’s apprentice (and alleged lover) Gian Giacomo Caprotti, known to da Vinci as Salai or “Little Devil.”

In an interview, Vinceti, who heads the research group National Committee for Cultural Heritage, explained that the infra-red findings prove that “the Mona Lisa is androgynous–half man and half woman.”

“You see it particularly in Mona Lisa’s nose and in her forehead and her smile.”

Vinceti’s claims are based on a close study of other paintings of Salai, who lived and worked with da Vinci for nearly twenty years.

Juicy though Vinceti’s analysis is, many art experts aren’t sold on the idea that the painting was inspired by the artist’s young apprentice. Martin Kemp, professor emeritus of the history of art at Trinity College, Oxford says,

“This is a mish-mash of known things, semi-known things and complete fantasy. The infra-red images do nothing to support the idea that Leonardo somehow painted a blend of Lisa Gherardini and Salai.”

Kemp, is currently at work on a new book, Mona Lisa: The People and the Painting, adds that no one knows for sure what exactly Salai looked like. (Although, many have said the drawing above is Salai.)

“Giorgio Vasari (a contemporary painter and a chronicler of Renaissance artists) described him as a pretty boy with curly hair, but that was a standard type of the era. It featured in Leonardo’s work long before Salai came on the scene.”

It commonly believed that upon Leonardo’s death in 1519, Salaì inherited several paintings including the Mona Lisa, which might back up the theory that Salai was the model for the painting.

Monna Vanna – a nude version of the Mona Lisa.