Collecting
Russian Billionaire's Record Da Vinci Sale Could Complicate a Different Legal Battle
- ‘Salvator Mundi’ sold for $450.3 million at New York auction
- Russian accuses Swiss of overcharging him by about $1 billion
The record price a Leonardo da Vinci canvas fetched at an auction Nov. 15 in New York may have a downside for its seller, Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev.
An unidentified buyer agreed to pay $450.3 million, including fees, for Da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” at a Christie’s auction in New York, obliterating the previous record set by a Pablo Picasso work in 2015. And it far outstripped the $127.5 million Rybolovlev paid Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier for the canvas in 2013.