What happened to the “Salvator Mundi”?

EVEN BY THE standards of blockbuster shows, “Leonardo da Vinci” promised to be one to remember. The exhibition, which ran for four months from October 2019, marked the 500th anniversary of the master’s death and was hosted at the Louvre, a museum which owns more of the painter’s work than any other institution. Two years earlier a recently rediscovered artwork of Jesus Christ by da Vinci had fetched $450m at auction, a record sum. Dubbed the “male Mona Lisa”, “Salvator Mundi” would be displayed beside its female counterpart for the first time at the Louvre. That’s what the buyer hoped, at least: when the show opened, there was no sign of the picture even though it was included in the exhibition catalogue (which had been printed some time beforehand).