Priceless Art

In This Wall Street Journal Article, I read with great interest about a priceless piece of art that had been lost for decades.

Leonardo da Vinci's painting of Christ, Salvatore Mundi, "Savior of the World," was auctioned last year for a record-setting $450.3 million dollars!  Wow.  That is a lot of money.  The amazing part of the story, though, is where it had been.  The quotes below are excerpted from the WSJ Article:

Susan Hendry Tureau, a 70-year-old retired library technician in Baton Rouge, La., only last week learned that a painting her father, Basil Clovis Hendry Sr., had owned was reauthenticated as a da Vinci. She said he acquired the painting after she and her siblings were adults and no longer living with him. Her brother and her niece remember seeing it hanging in the plantation-style Baton Rouge home of her father, who owned a local sheet-metal company, she said. Ms. Hendry Tureau remembers a number of religious-themed paintings at her father’s house, though not specifically the da Vinci. 

“We can’t believe it, that such an incredible piece could have been in our family and we didn’t even know it all this time,” Ms. Hendry Tureau said. “It just sort of brings me alive.”

Ms. Hendry Tureau said her father, who died in June 2004, inherited artworks after the 1987 death of his aunt, Minnie Stanfill Kuntz. The aunt’s husband, Warren E. Kuntz, ran a furniture business in New Orleans and died in 1968. Ms. Hendry Tureau said her great aunt and great uncle often traveled to Europe, and purchased art and antiques for their collection while abroad.

While in Europe, the Kuntz' purchased Salvatore Mundi for $120!  After Kuntz' death, the piece of art was valued at $750 and sold it.  It was then restored by the purchasers and authenticated to be a da Vinci painting and sold to the Saudi Crown Prince for $450.3 million dollars!  To think that this thing hung on the walls of a family home an hour and a half away from here is amazing.

Image Credit

Now, I certainly don't want to come across as being pretentious, but as I walked around our house, I discovered that we have some priceless art hanging on our walls too.  I'll share a peek of our gallery with you:

If Christie's or Sotheby's auction house comes calling, I've already authenticated the valuable paintings to be masterpieces that our kids painted when they were younger and... they ain't for sale!