Salvator Mundi

"Throw it to the potter, this magnificent price to which I have been esteemed by them." Zechariah 11. 13

On November 15, 2017, at an auction in New York, the record for the most expensive painting in the world was beaten : "Salvator Mundi", a work by Leonardo da Vinci, was awarded for 450 million dollars ! This work will join the Louvre Museum Abu Dhabi. A stroke of our Master for this brand new museum, inaugurated on November 8 in the United Arab Emirates. How many visitors will be brought by him to the Christian faith, no one knows !

The painting on walnut was made for the King of France Louis XII and was forgotten for centuries. Revisited in the twentieth century and carefully restored, it was only formally attributed to the genius of the Renaissance recently.

The painting represents the "Savior of the world" (Salvator Mundi in Latin) in a classical form of the time : Christ in glory gives his blessing of the right hand, with the index and middle finger crossed, a gesture that also represents the proclamation of the divine word. In his left hand he carries a transparent crystal sphere, symbol of his universal royal rule.

There are several paradoxes in this event :

- the most expensive artistic work in the world is the one sold for the price of a slave, 30 pieces of silver ;

- The speculation around the work of art obscures the deep meaning that the artist wanted to convey by the subject he represented. We are ecstatic about the record (almost three times more than the previous one !), But we forget the infinite value of the one who is represented and who has marked our civilization, starting with our calendar ;

- the purchasers of this work of art, the powerful of today, these builders of financial empires, however refuse to humble themselves before the humble Galilean rejected formerly. And he is Jesus, the Savior of the world, the one who has received universal dominion and whose word must one day be authoritative.

If most of our contemporaries have forgotten the infinite value of the one who is represented, for us who believe, he has this price (1 Pi. 2. 7) ! No reader can afford this painting, but everyone can welcome the Savior of the world for free and cherish him more than any other value... in the world !

Source (Pleasing the Lord)