Agents are bidding on at the auction of Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi'

Culture

Ten, který nespasil svět

Dec 12, 2017 Peter Singer

PRINCETON – „Salvator Mundi“, vyobrazení Ježíše jako Spasitele světa od Leonarda da Vinciho, byl minulý měsíc vydražen za 400 milionů dolarů, víc než dvojnásobek předchozího rekordu u uměleckého díla prodaného v aukci. Kupec také musel zaplatit dalších 50,3 milionu dolarů v provizích a poplatcích.

Obraz je silně retušovaný, a někteří odborníci dokonce zpochybňují, zda skutečně pochází od Leonarda. Jason Farago, kritik umění pro New York Times, jej popsal jako „mistrný, leč nijak zvlášť význačný náboženský obraz z Lombardie kolem zrodu 16. století, jemuž daly restaurační zásahy pořádně zabrat“.

Kupec – mnozí jsou přesvědčeni, že šlo o saúdského korunního prince Muhammada bin Salmána, jednajícího přes vzdáleného bratrance – zaplatil velmi vysokou cenu za obraz muže, jenž jiné bohaté osobě údajně řekl: „Jdi, prodej, co ti patří, rozdej chudým, a budeš mít poklad v nebi.“ Je tedy namístě se ptát: co by někdo s postradatelnými 450 miliony dolarů, mohl udělat pro chudé?

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Peter Singer

Writing for PS since 2001
227 Commentaries

Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, is Founder of the nonprofit organization The Life You Can Save. His books include Animal Liberation, Practical Ethics, The Ethics of What We Eat (with Jim Mason), Rethinking Life and Death, The Point of View of the Universe, co-authored with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek, The Most Good You Can Do, Famine, Affluence, and Morality, One World Now, Ethics in the Real World, Why Vegan?, and Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction, also with Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek. In April 2021, W.W. Norton published his new edition of Apuleius’s The Golden Ass. In 2013, he was named the world's third "most influential contemporary thinker" by the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute. He is a co-author (with Shih Chao-Hwei) of the forthcoming The Buddhist and the Ethicist (Shambhala Publications, December 2023).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 22 Comments on this article

Kim Seong-il (not really) Jan 7, 2018

Art is an important cultural activity humans have always engaged in. Art needs patronage. Let this tradition survive, and Singer should give himself (as he does) instead of meddling in this sort of transaction.
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suman Raj Dec 19, 2017

Awesome article Dear Sir
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John Doyle Dec 17, 2017

$450 million is a drop in the bucket. Most nations are monetary sovereign. They can buy all their debts simply by crediting reserve accounts at the relevant Central Bank.
Any one of them could stump up such a sum entirely without troubling the governments annual accounts. You wouldn't even know.

Think about it. Where does the money come from to pay for disaster relief? For the QE swap from the Federal Reserve bank in 2008-10? [That was $29 TRILLION]. Did the US deficit grow by anything like that sum in those years? No. It was not counted in the annual accounts. The $450million would not show up in these accounts. The government always spends outside its chosen accounts. Taxes could never be sufficient to make a significant dent in government spending, so they are not used at all.
It begs the question as to why worthwhile initiatives are not funded this way. The answer lies with the politicians and their frankly evil agenda towards the bulk of the nation's population.
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Kudakwashe Kanhutu Dec 17, 2017

But maybe, perhaps, mayhap, perchance, conceivably, possibly, probably, assumably, the Idiot (Capital I) who bought a, not so great, painting for £450.3 million, also has already given over £1 billion to charitable causes. I doubt it very much though, because he doesn't strike me as a person of any decency or sense.
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Don Ramble Dec 14, 2017

If we learnt that the prince had bought the painting with the not unlikely intention to sell it later at a profit we might admire his investing skills. Warren Buffet’s life work has not been that different from this and he is almost revered.
- P. Kamath Dec 15, 2017
  
  You think the buyer is a poor prince who intended to buy-chap sell-high strategy to few bucks!
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Willie Kalb Dec 13, 2017

I'm so confused - could the learned scholar Peter Singer really not understand the simple fact that purchasing art is not spending money? (Rather, changing it into another form that may even cause it's value to increase.) Or is the premise of the article that the painting has no ongoing/resale value for some reason?
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Per Kurowski Dec 13, 2017

This Saudi prince just froze $450 million of his main-street purchase capacity on a wall, or in a storage room, which can be seen as a voluntary wealth tax. Go after those who will now use that purchase capacity to see what good they might do with it.
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sachindrasahu6 Dec 13, 2017

I have never been so shattered by the inequality and at the same time so happy with the best of the humanity.
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j. von Hettlingen Dec 13, 2017

Peter Singer highlights what $450 million can do to help the poor and needy. This is the astronomical sum paid for the most expensive painting in art history - Leonard da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" - a painting that portrays Jesus as Saviour of the world. The piece of work costs $400 million - excluding another $50.3 million in commissions and fees. Intelligence assessments had identified Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the powerful 32-year-old Saudi crown prince, as the true buyer of the painting, with another prince acting as an intermediary.
Apart from waging a brutal war in Yemen since his father, King Salman ascended the throne in 2015, MBS made headline most notably with the impulse purchase of a 440-foot yacht for $500 million from a Russian tycoon while holidaying in Southern France two years ago. The deal with the owner was done within hours and Yuri Shefler vacated the yacht the same day. This drew criticism as he was helping push through drastic austerity measures at home, like slashing state budget at a time of low oil prices.
The publicity revolving aroung the purchase of the painting may prove embarrassing to the crown prince. As head of an anti-corruption committee, MBS ordered a month ago that 320 people be called in for questioning while 159 are being detained at the Ritz-Carlton in Riyadh. Among them are princes and the Kingdom's richest businessmen and powerful officials. The bank accounts of 376 people have been frozen. Later a prince was released after agreeing an "acceptable settlement" with authorities of more than $1bn.
With the help of a "Charity Impact Calculator" the author highlights how $450 million can be spent more purposefully - at the service of humanity. He says when MBS chose to buy “Salvator Mundi” instead pf restoring eyesight to 9 million people, or buying 180 million bed nets, enough to protect 271 million people from malaria, he can not be serious about caring "very much about other people." But the ruling Saudi elites are known for rampant corruption. Another coincidence: MBS has once again done big business with a Russian oligarch, Dmitry Rybolovlev, who was the seller of "Salvator Mundi."
The author points out that in 2006, Warren Buffett "pledged to give most of his wealth – around $30 billion – to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help people in extreme poverty. That gift – the single biggest gift anyone has ever given to anyone for anything – doubled the r3esources of the foundation." To mark the 10th anniversary of Buffet's pledge, last year Bill and Melinda Gates "reported to him on what the foundation, together with other organizations, achieved to improve global health over that decade."
According to the Gateses, "every dollar spent on childhood immunization yields $44 in economic benefits, including the money that families otherwise lose when a child gets sick and a parent cannot work. Warren Buffett’s contribution to immunizations may be the best investment he has ever made."
Indeed, the $450 million could be spent more wisely on improving the health of millions in the developing world and making an impact on their lives, instead of paying for a painting, whose authenticity is still doubted by some. MBS seems obsessed with the image of Jesus, although conservative clerics find it un-Islamic, saying Jesus was merely a prophet. But he should have known what the Saviour had once said: “Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.”
It is an advice that a young, ambitious and impetuous leader will not take, because he knows what power is and what money can buy.
- P. Kamath Dec 15, 2017
  
  It is a matter of time, perhaps sooner than later as soon as oil runs out. So writing or painting is on the wall , the fate is sealed.
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John Landrum Dec 12, 2017

Marvin Olasky interviewed Princeton philosopher of bioethics, Peter Singer. When asked about the morality of necrophilia (having sexual relations with a corpse) Singer said, “There’s no moral problem with that.” What about bestiality? Is it morally acceptable to have sex with animals so long as they seem willing to do so? Singer’s answer: “I would ask, ‘What’s holding you back from a more fulfilling relationship?’ (but) it’s not wrong inherently in a moral sense.”

Why would anyone consider this man's opinion on any subject of any value whatsoever?
- Kim Seong-il (not really) Jan 7, 2018
  
  So your response to this article is merely a fallacious criticism based in shock value, rather than a consideration of his actual stance and argument. You should try harder.
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jeff Dec 12, 2017

Maybe there's a big silver lining? Assuming the Princely buyer is in fact unfathomably greedy, foolish, and heartless, we've just witnessed nearly a half billion dollars being wrested from his unworthy paws and into the hands of people who may be more generous or who -- at a minimum -- need or use it more. Lots of folks got pieces of that $$ up the trail from Louisiana (where the painting it was found) to Arabia. I wonder if it's ultimately a good thing to scold the greedy "fool" for parting with his money. I get your point, though: you're scolding all of us - and maybe we deserve it. On the other hand, focusing our ire on the Prince (for failing to make a half-billion-dollar charitable donation) lets the rest of us off the hook?
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Gjergj Erebara Dec 12, 2017

The same comment as above. Madness as it is, a 400 million painting was sold by someone who is hardly identified in the media. It is one of scores of madness cases, including, building Eiffel tower, building Louvre, building a 120 million USD monument for Martin Luther King or holding immense quantities of jewelry for no "sensible" reason. On the other hand, luxury is also an economic factor, which brings jobs for poor and rich alike, including Louvre or Eiffel tower. And also Abu Dhabi luxury hotels.
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Michael Costopoulos Dec 12, 2017

Well professor, in the same line of ethics, why don't you instruct the seller to give to the poor the USD 400 million they made by selling this painting? This money wasn't destroyed after all, it merely changed hands. I have to admit, Project Syndicate is not a place I was expecting to see hegemonic views bordering outright racism disguised as Christian morality.
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