The Last Leonardo, Ben Lewis
The Last Leonardo, Ben Lewis
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The Last Leonardo
The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting

Author: Ben Lewis

Narrator: Peter Noble

Unabridged: 12 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2019


Synopsis

An epic quest exposes hidden truths about Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, the recently discovered masterpiece that sold for $450 million—and might not be the real thing.
 
In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale 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 early 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. Ben Lewis takes us to Leonardo’s studio in Renaissance Italy; to the court of Charles I and the English Civil War; to Amsterdam, Moscow, and New Orleans; 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 six centuries. It is a twisting tale of geniuses and oligarchs, double-crossings and disappearances, in which 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.

Praise for The Last Leonardo

“The story of the world’s most expensive painting is narrated with great gusto and formidably researched detail in Ben Lewis’s book. . . . Lewis’s probings of the Salvator’s backstory raise questions about its historical status and visibility, and these lead in turn to the fundamental question of whether the painting is really an autograph work by Leonardo.”—Charles Nicholl, The Guardian

“As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.”— Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sue on July 04, 2019

The Last Leonardo is an exhaustive look at one painting, Salvator Mundi, thought to be a previously unacknowledged original by Leonardo da Vinci. In this detailed “life of” the painting, Lewis presents a useful biography of Leonardo along with background on his painting techniques over time and his......more

Goodreads review by Ellen on August 05, 2019

This was not nearly as good a book as it should have been. Ben Lewis qualifications are admirable and his ideas about the story are there, but the structure just doesn't work. The book is subtitled "The Secret Lives of the World's Most Expensive Painting." Well that's just not what the book is about......more


Quotes

“A richly detailed mystery . . . As Lewis chronicles the quest to attribute the painting to [Leonardo] da Vinci, he uncovers an astoundingly dysfunctional world of museums, galleries, auction houses, collectors—a Russian oligarch and a Saudi prince among them—and unscrupulous middlemen, a world plagued by mistrust, suspicion, and the irresistible lure of financial rewards. Art, greed, and stealth make for a lively tale of intrigue.”Kirkus Reviews

“As the art historian and critic Ben Lewis shows in his forensically detailed and gripping investigation into the history, discovery and sales of the painting, establishing the truth is like nailing down jelly.” Michael Prodger, The Sunday Times