A distinguished copy of 'Salvator Mundi' is now on offer — could it also be the truest to Leonardo da Vinci's vision?

When, in 2011, the National Gallery opened its Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan exhibition, it shocked the world. Its centrepiece was a painting, Salvator Mundi, newly attributed to the great Tuscan master, the first discovery of his work in a century and one of only about 20 thought to be by his hand.

The picture was discovered in 2005 in a regional sale in the USA, having previously been in the collection of British merchant Sir Francis Cook — albeit attributed to another Italian artist, Bernardino Luini. It was deemed to be the long-lost original after which the many versions of Salvator Mundi that issued from da Vinci's workshop were based.

It had taken six years of restoration and research to put forward the da Vinci attribution, but it was by no means universally accepted — indeed, it continues to cause controversy among art historians to this day. However, this didn’t prevent the picture selling for an astounding $450.3 million at a Christie’s sale in 2017.

Less than a decade after that record auction, the most distinguished copy of Salvator Mundi made by da Vinci's workshop, the de Ganay’s version — named after the French marquess to whom it belonged for a time — is now on offer, this time with Agnews, which is presenting it this week at The European Fine Art Fair (TEFAF) in Maastricht, The Netherlands (March 14–19).

Unlike the record-breaking Cook Salvator Mundi, this is not a rediscovery. It had been exhibited in Paris in 1866, when it belonged to ​​Baron de Lareinty, who maintained it had come from a convent in Nantes, which in turn might have received it, according to the late American art historian Joanne Snow-Smith, by none other than Louis XII, one-time employer of da Vinci.

In 1902, the de Ganay Salvator Mundi was then acquired by Parisian connoisseur Countess Martine de Béhague, before entering the collection of the marquess that gave it its name. Sold by Sotheby’s in 1999, it has been in a private collection until now.

For a brief moment, the de Ganay version itself was considered the prototype of the workshop’s Salvator Mundis, with Snow-Smith positing in 1978 that it had been painted by the master himself between 1507 and 1513, while he was at the court of Louis XII. Today, French art historian and da Vinci specialist Vincent Delieuvin deems it to be ‘a version by a faithful pupil of the master, doubtless painted under his supervision and with his possible intervention’ — but could it also be the truest to da Vinci's vision?

In 2022, when Spain’s Museo El Prado stoked the flames of the debate over the Cook Salvator Mundi by downgrading it to the category of ‘attributed works, workshop or authorised and supervised by Leonardo’, Spanish scholar Ana Gonzáles Mozo suggested that de Ganay picture could be the closest to what she believed to be the missing original by the master.

Although both the de Ganay and the Cook Salvator Mundi are painted on walnut panels of similar sizes and have similar proportions, there are several differences between the two, not least in the drapery — the de Ganay has a fold shaped like the Greek letter Ω (omega), thought to be a symbol of the crucifixion wounds — and the position of Christ’s hand. The rock crystal orb — an emblem of supremacy, as Antiques Roadshow expert and jewellery specialist Geoffrey Munn explains, ‘made from a noble material absolutely loaded with talismanic and apotropaic meanings’ — has an obvious cross painted over it in the de Ganay version. It suggests, says Geoffrey, ‘the universality of Christianity covering the orb, which is the world’.

He expects the de Ganay picture to cause a stir in Maastricht. Although it may not make the same head-spinning numbers as the Cook Salvator Mundi, it is certain to turn heads.