Salvator Mundi

Summary

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Hoax! Podcast – “Salvator Mundi” (October 13, 2025)

Main Theme / Purpose

This episode of Hoax! delves into the tangled, improbable, and sometimes absurd history of the “Salvator Mundi”—a painting attributed (at times) to Leonardo da Vinci that became the most expensive artwork ever sold. Co-hosts Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan unpack the multi-layered saga of attribution, art world intrigue, restoration controversy, and high-stakes art investment, questioning what authenticity and value even mean in a world rife with scams, self-deception, and marketing spin.

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Episode Breakdown

I. Setting the Stage: What is the Salvator Mundi? (02:17–09:00)

• Dana confesses her limited knowledge: “I can sort of picture it in my mind's eye... maybe by Leonardo da Vinci. And it sold for a lot of money. I think that's the extent of what I know about it.” (02:47)
• Lizzie gives a playful disclaimer: This isn’t a single-mastermind hoax, but a tale “with hoaxism, hoaxification, hoaxicity” – a many-faceted story of deception, wishful thinking, and “flimflammery, scammety, happening in multiple directions over the course of a number of years.” (03:16–03:52)
• Background on da Vinci: Not a solitary artist; his famous workshop, filled with pupils and assistants (“Leonardeschi”), meant authorship was always murky.
  • Dana jokes: “So like James Patterson writing a book.” (06:18)
• The painting “Salvator Mundi” (Latin for ‘Savior of the World’) is an art motif: Jesus, one hand raised in blessing, the other holding a globe. Numerous versions and copies existed from Da Vinci’s studio.

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II. A Forgotten Jesus Painting Emerges in Louisiana (09:00–13:40)

• In the 2000s, an overlooked, poorly restored “ugly Jesus painting” goes unsold at a New Orleans estate sale and lands online.
• Robert Simon and Alexander Parrish, mid-tier art dealers, buy it—for somewhere between $1,200 and $10,000, depending on the version told. “That's not... That is under 10,000.” (12:06)
• They bring in restorer Diane Modestini in New York, who soon forms an intense, perhaps emotional, connection to the work as she restores it in the aftermath of her husband’s death.

III. Clues and Convictions: Is It a Da Vinci? (13:40–18:46)

• Modestini finds a “pentimento”—a painted-over thumb—suggesting an original creative process, not a mere copy.
  • She’s struck by the uncanny resemblance to the Mona Lisa’s mouth. “I've only ever seen this mouth on one other painting, the Mona Lisa. ...This painting is by da Vinci.” (16:51)
• Meanwhile, attempts to trace the painting’s provenance are inconclusive.
  • “They track it back to, like, the 50s... the painting goes in and out of history.” (17:13–17:49)
• Post-Da Vinci Code, “Da Vinci mania” fuels public interest and increases the allure of a lost masterpiece.

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IV. The Expert Panel and Aesthetics of Uncertainty (18:46–34:32)

• The National Gallery, London, reluctantly takes a look after repeated, usually-ignored claims of “lost” da Vincis.
• A group of curators and scholars gather. There’s no consensus, only widely diverging expert opinions:
  • One claims: “This painting is by da Vinci. ...it's such a good painting that only da Vinci could have done it.” (31:22)
  • Another: “Da Vinci was such a genius, he never could have painted such a bad painting.” (32:09)
  • Most say: It’s likely a workshop piece, with da Vinci perhaps touching up the hands or curls.
• Restoration controversy: Modestini’s extensive overpainting (“the joke at the time: this belongs in a contemporary art museum because it was painted in 2005” – 33:43) leads some to call it “a really beautiful painting by Diane Modestini.” (33:21)
• Despite lack of clear consensus, National Gallery displays it in their 2011 da Vinci exhibition simply as “by Leonardo da Vinci.”

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V. The Art Market: Deal-Making, Deception, and the Freeport Mafias (34:32–45:55)

• With the National Gallery’s “blessing,” owners seek $100–200 million, but no museum bites; the painting is tainted by repeated rejections.
• Enter the shadowy world of ultra-rich collectors: Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, advised by “freeport” mogul Yves Bouvier, buys the painting via an elaborate web of shell companies and intermediaries, adding confusion to its provenance and sales price.
  • Yves secretly flips the painting for nearly $50 million profit, sparking lawsuits when Dmitry learns, via media reporting, he was massively overcharged—a “hoax” within a “hoax.”
  • “This is sort of the hoax of the episode, but really it’s just a guy doing a job and a guy who wasn’t paying close enough attention.” (43:32)

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VI. Christie's & the Marketing Machine: The Last Da Vinci (45:55–52:57)

• Christie's, tasked with auctioning Rybolovlev’s collection, brings unprecedented hype:
  • Outside marketing firm, blockbuster branding: “The Last Da Vinci.”
  • Dramatic displays, video campaigns showing people (including Leonardo DiCaprio) tearing up before the painting—turning acclaim into self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • Media parrots Christie's marketing: “Now tell me, why do they call it the male Mona Lisa?” (48:36)
• Dana’s critical self-awareness: “If you tell almost anyone this painting is amazing and it’s important, and it’s probably by Leonardo da Vinci... they’ll believe you.” (48:19)
• The co-hosts highlight that art value is entirely subjective—a function of stories and branding as much as inherent quality.

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VII. The Auction: The World's Most Expensive Painting (57:30–59:19)

• Fierce phone bidding brings the hammer price to an astonishing $400 million ($450.3M with fees), shattering auctions records.
• Buyer revealed (after leaks and tipoffs) as the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).

Notable Quote

• Dana: “Jesus. ...They should feed the hungry children. It’s not great that people are paying this much for a picture that maybe was by da Vinci. And even if it was, what then, who’s that gonna feed?” (58:05)

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VIII. The Disappearing Masterpiece: Politics, Culture, and Hoaxicity (59:19–77:34)

• It’s odd for a Muslim crown prince to buy a painting of Jesus (depicting prophets is generally forbidden under Islam).
• Promises that it will go to the Louvre turn out to mean “Louvre Abu Dhabi.” Yet, after shipping to Saudi Arabia, the painting mysteriously vanishes—never displayed, not even at the new Abu Dhabi location.
• Reportedly, MBS wanted it displayed “next to the Mona Lisa” in Paris—a demand even the Louvre would not satisfy. The Louvre quietly shelves their purported attribution report; the saga stalls in embassies, palaces, and private yachts.
• Lizzie observes: The painting’s value and narrative kept compounding like a “paperclip for a house” trade—“just by sheer people, just more and more people adding their name to it turned it into $450 million.” (75:32)
• Dana’s summation: “The entire art world is just a shell. Nothing is worth that much money. So it’s all just investing for your tax purposes and your tax havens, whatever. So it’s all silly and stupid.” (47:52, reprised at 76:14)

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IX. Closing Thoughts / The Larger Hoax

• Where is the painting now? No one’s sure: “People think it might be on his [MBS’s] yacht. Nobody knows where it is.” (72:19)
• The question of authenticity: Is it even still a da Vinci after so much restoration? Is attribution just a consensus, a “brand”?
  • Lizzie: “To me, this whole thing was really reminding me of the Ship of Theseus. ...What is a da Vinci? Is anything he touched with his paintbrush even once a da Vinci? ...It is for sure a Modestini. Like, she painted large parts of that canvas.” (73:34)
• Both hosts agree: For all the intrigue, it’s still not a very compelling painting—but its story is mesmerizing.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It is a story with hoaxism. It is a story with hoaxification. It is a story with hoaxicity around it.” – Lizzie (03:16)
• “Hoaxisms in the air. Flimflammery, scammety, happening in multiple directions over the course of a number of years.” – Lizzie (03:52)
• “Yeah, they were roommates. And they were roommates.” – Running joke about da Vinci and Salai (05:34)
• “If a painting is valued above a certain amount... you should have to display it like four weeks a year. ...People should be allowed to see it.” – Dana (73:00)
• “Value, especially value when it comes to art, is inherently subjective. ...Also, is the entire art market money laundering? Yeah, 100%.” – Dana and Lizzie (76:02–76:18)
• “This story reminds me... of the Office Garage Sale episode where Dwight starts with a thumbtack and trades his way up to a telescope.” – Lizzie (75:19)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• Introduction and premise: 02:17–04:12
• Da Vinci’s studio & authorship issues: 04:13–09:00
• Discovery of the painting: 09:00–13:40
• The restoration and emotional connection: 13:40–15:40
• Debates on attribution/provenance: 15:40–18:46
• National Gallery meets “hoaxicity”: 18:46–34:32
• The modern art market, billionaires, and Freeport loopholes: 34:32–45:55
• Marketing and “The Last da Vinci”: 45:55–52:57
• Auction and record sale: 57:30–59:19
• Post-sale: Crown prince, culture clash, and disappearance: 59:19–73:34
• Concluding philosophical questions: 73:34–77:34

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Tone & Style

The hosts balance scholarly art history with breezy, irreverent humor and pop culture analogies (“James Patterson writing a book,” “graduation photo,” “Da Vinci Code fever”), while persistently interrogating why we want to believe in masterpieces—and what “authenticity” really means in a world where millions hinge on consensus and branding. Their lively exchanges underscore the shifting, unstable territory between facts, frauds, hype, and hope.

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This episode provides not just a roller-coaster story of mistaken identity, marketing wizardry, and ultra-wealthy maneuvering, but an incisive, witty critique of the machinery that turns hoaxes and uncertainties into some of the world’s most valuable commodities.

Transcript

[Lizzie Logan]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

Two rich young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it.

[Dana Schwartz]

They actually lose it.

[Lizzie Logan]

They sort of went nuts.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Helen Heather on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

Almost 10 years.

[Lizzie Logan]

10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Goodbye. On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset.

[Lizzie Logan]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Dana Schwartz]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Lizzie Logan]

Tomorrow is the day of retribution.

[Dana Schwartz]

The day in which I will have my reven is Incels.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to season one of Incels on.

[Dana Schwartz]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu Every single episode.

[Lizzie Logan]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna. Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

You're listening to Hoax, a production of iHeart podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

Folks, it's a Hoax album. No one ever seems to believe me.

[Dana Schwartz]

When I swear I never was deceiving I'm left wonder. Welcome to Hoax, a podcast about the lies we wish were true and truths.

[Lizzie Logan]

That sound like lies.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm the ghost of Dana Schwartz.

[Lizzie Logan]

And I'm the evil twin of Lizzie Logan. Welcome to the show, Dana. What do you know about the painting known as the Salvator Mundi?

[Dana Schwartz]

I can sort of picture it in my mind's eye, I've like seen it and it was like maybe by Leonardo da Vinci. And it sold for a lot of money. Yep. I think that's the extent of what I know about it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Those are the main things. Those are the main things.

[Dana Schwartz]

And pot episode over. Well, yeah, sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, those are the main things. You're not wrong. I will say this is a, to me, very delightful story with a lot of twists and turns.

[Dana Schwartz]

I love it.

[Lizzie Logan]

It does not have. I just want to say this, like, for the listener. It does not have one big reveal at the end. So if you're like, please don't listen to this episode, like holding your breath, waiting for the moment when I tell you. And it was a. Because, like, no, it is like a. It is a story with hoaxism. It is a story with hoaxification. It is a story with hoaxicity around it. But it is not the story of like one mastermind's long running hoax. It's just like a lot of little.

[Dana Schwartz]

Hoaxisms in the air.

[Lizzie Logan]

Hoaxisms in the air. Flimflammery, scammety, happening in multiple directions over the course of a number of years.

[Dana Schwartz]

I love it. It's a multi dimensional hoax.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's a multi dimensional hoax that I think will give us a lot to talk about. But yeah, I just didn't want. I didn't want anyone to be disappointed going into this thinking, like, when was the big twist?

[Dana Schwartz]

That's a very generous disclaimer.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Okay, so we begin in old times.

[Dana Schwartz]

Da Vinci times.

[Lizzie Logan]

Da Vinci times. We're talking the last quarter of the 15th century and the first quarter of the 16th century, mostly in Florence. Leonardo da Vinci, he's a painter, he's also an inventor, a mathematician, a scientist. Famously drew Barrymore's fairy godfather in the film Ever after, which I believe is a documentary.

[Dana Schwartz]

A documentary?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, A historical object. We think of artists as being like very solitary, like, you know, girl with a pearl earring, or like some guy, you know, in his room just painting by himself. But that was not the case for da Vinci. He was famous in his own time and he was very revered. And he had a studio, he had assistants, he had students. And they were known as the Leonardeschi or the Leonardeschi. I guess however you pronounce Buscemi is how you should pronounce this word. Brusqueta. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

If we go out to dinner, I'll be absolutely insufferable is what the note is.

[Lizzie Logan]

One of them might have been his lover, a guy Named Salai, who was sort of his protege and inherited everything after da Vinci's death.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, you know, his like, male roommate. His like hot young male roommate.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, and they were roommates. And they were roommates. And they were roommates.

[Dana Schwartz]

And he's like, is it this? Like, I kind of remember in a book I read, like there was one like blonde guy that he would like paint into his portraits.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, I think that was him.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, yeah, just you know how you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do for your friend, his much younger friend who neither of them ever had a girlfriend, so who knows?

[Dana Schwartz]

And they're painting each other all the time.

[Lizzie Logan]

So in this workshop they're making a lot of art. And it was not like one. I mean, they weren't using canvas at the time, but it was not like one guy, one canvas. Yeah, it would be, you know, da Vinci might do a sketch and then say, okay, everybody do a painting based on this sketch and we'll sell all these paintings. Or he might do a sketch and say, okay, you guys paint the background and then I'm going to come in and paint the figures.

[Dana Schwartz]

So like James Patterson writing a book.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes, exactly like James Patterson writing a book, honestly. Or like how they finish the whatchamacallit Girl with a Dragon Tattoo book based on like the outlines.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So authorship is already sort of murky. But this is not like a plagiarism thing. This is a known thing happening in Florence. This is. They're not trying to get one over on their patrons doing this.

[Dana Schwartz]

And it also feels like sometimes people have a misunderstanding of what artists were back then. Like they were providing a service.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like they were providing a service. And also, like, even today, art comes very often comes out of a workshop. And like an artist might not have, you know, when you look at these like big artworks that are in museums, like Christo or whatever his name is, like, he didn't hand put all those flags in by himself. People have artists work. Artists have people working for them.

[Dana Schwartz]

I read the memoir written by the wife of the artist, Tom Sachs. He has a whole workshop.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. All of which is to say there are a number of works coming out of the Da Vinci workshop that Da Vinci himself has only contributed to in the conception of them. Or perhaps doing touch ups in like movie parlance. Maybe he was like the executive producer.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And I'm sure it drives historians crazy because it's like, we don't know if this is one that he just like thought of the idea of or if this is like, I'll do the figures.

[Lizzie Logan]

Exactly. And today Only ones that are called actually autographs, which is by master's own hand, are really like, worth very much. And there aren't very many of them.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm gonna guess eight. Eleven?

[Lizzie Logan]

More like 15.

[Dana Schwartz]

All right.

[Lizzie Logan]

There are 15 more or less confirmed da Vinci paintings, and there's a lot more da Vinci stuff out there. He had a lot of notebooks and drawings. And he also maybe had like raging adhd, because there's a lot of like half finished works and plans for stuff that he never got around to making, which. Fair enough, King go off relatable. And in the second half of his career, sort of the end of his life, around the time that he's painting the Mona Lisa.

[Dana Schwartz]

Heard of it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Heard of it. Which took him like over 10 years, which I didn't realize there is reason to believe for reasons that are honestly kind of boring, but which we can get into that he painted a Salvador Mundi, which, much like Madonna and Child, is like a type of art.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So if you didn't grow up studying Catholic art, Which we didn't, because we.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, we did not.

[Lizzie Logan]

A Salvador Mundi, which is, I think a Latin for savior of the world, is a artwork that depicts Jesus with one hand raised in blessing and the other holding some kind of orb representing the world. And you can have like a figurine that is this, like a piece of iconography? Yes, yes, yes. Or you can have a painting and there are a bunch of this iconography that comes out of the da Vinci workshop that are by all of his sort of, like, proteges and assistants that have Jesus basically wearing like the same outfit. And there is a engraving made about a hundred years after da Vinci's death by a guy named Wenceslas Haller that purports to be an engraving made of the original that was painted by da Vinci. So there's a lot of scholarship that says maybe there's an original da Vinci painting somewhere in the world.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure. Because so many of his workshop people were copying something, presumably.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. Copying something that he did. But it's also possible that he just like. And there are studies, like sketches that he made sort of in preparation to maybe paint one of these things. But it's also possible that he just made like a sketch that then everybody copied or some other secret third thing. We don't know for sure. Yeah. So that is just information. Background on da Vinci. He died in 1519. Okay, cut to 500 years later in New Orleans, a businessman dies and an auction house takes a look at his art collection that he had inherited from his aunt. And they say, okay, great, here's all the stuff that we will take. And we don't want that ugly Jesus painting that's in your hallway. Goodbye. And so the Jesus painting and all his other random paintings goes to like the local antique store and they just throw it up online, like just for auction for not very much money.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh my God.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's not a very good looking painting. It's been like varnished and painted over a bunch. It does not look good.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it looks like super muddy. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And just kind of like blotchy. You can look it up. I'm not even going to show it as part of our conversation. Like it's not a cool looking painting. But Robert Simon and Alexander Parrish, who are both sort of medium time art dealers, see it for sale online. And they're like, this painting is ugly and it's been overpainted. But it's kind of interesting. It looks like one of those Salvador Mundi copies that were so popular in 1500 Italy. Like it's like really cheap. So let's just buy it. It's a little bit unclear how much they paid for it because they then say that they paid like 1200 bucks for it. But then other sources say that they paid under 10,000 for it, which seems like a really big.

[Dana Schwartz]

I guess technically.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, like that's not. That is under 10,000.

[Dana Schwartz]

But that even seems expensive for like a random auction website. But I guess if it's like a nice old painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, I don't really know. But then. And they also don't really get into this. But they also might have had other people helping them buy it besides the two of them. But they're going to need to raise some more money anyway because they're about to hire an art restorer. So already the waters are about to get murky on exactly where the money is coming from around this painting. But in any case, they, in a rather casual, not making a big deal way, they buy it and they basically just get it like FedEx to New York and they hand it over to a woman named Diane Modestini. And Modestini is a very well respected art restorer. She lives in New York with her husband who is also a very well respected art restorer. He's a bit older than her. He's 98.

[Dana Schwartz]

How old is she?

[Lizzie Logan]

I think she's in her maybe 20s. No, she's in like her 60s at that point. Maybe in her 70s now.

[Dana Schwartz]

All right.

[Lizzie Logan]

But he's very old and he's in very ill health.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, he's 98.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. I mean, I don't know. Dick Van Dyke's like fucking ballin'. That's true.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's tap dancing on tables and stuff.

[Lizzie Logan]

So she cleans up the painting a little bit and she shows it to her husband. And her husband's like, I don't know who did this painting, but there's something about this painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, so he's 98, but he's still on the ball.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, this is the thing. Not much, but this painting, like, awakens something in him. He's like, I don't have reactions to a lot of paintings, but I have. I got some feeling about this painting. I'm gonna pause here for just a minute to talk about a couple things that are going on right before and right after the moment that we're in. Okay, so we're in 2005. In 2003, the book the Da Vinci Code comes out.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

So Da Vinci, already basically the most famous painter in the world. After the Da Vinci Code, I would say inarguably the most famous painter in the world. Like, no one's hunting for codes in Michelangelo or Monet.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's not true. Because. Have you read from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil Lee Frankweiler? Well, yes, people are looking for Michelangelo.

[Lizzie Logan]

Codes, but that's just one thing.

[Dana Schwartz]

Take it back. Lizzie Logan. Michael. He's. He's a top three.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. He's a top three.

[Dana Schwartz]

Code hunting Code Hunting artist.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay. Take it back. I take it back. I take it back. But I will say, in 2005, Da Vinci still. People are. People have da Vinci on the brain.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Mixed up files is old news. Da Vinci Code is the hot young thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

Da Vinci Code is big in 2006. The movie the Da Vinci Code is about to come out.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So people are really feeling. Da Vinci fever has gripped the nation. Da Vinci mania.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And also shortly after all of this is happening, Mr. Modestini does die.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, rip, rip.

[Lizzie Logan]

So this is pure speculation, but I think it is notable to keep in mind going forward that this painting is one of the last that the Modestinis look at together. And after they look at it, Diane is sitting in her home alone for many years working on this painting. I don't know if she's a religious woman, but it is a painting of Jesus and she's thinking about her dead husband. So if she forms a rather intense connection to the painting, perhaps that's why. That's just my speculation.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's a good interpretation.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's Just my speculation, but while she's working on the painting, Diane notices two things. First is called a pentimento, which means a first thought. And that is when there is, like, another version of the art under the art. So she notices that Jesus thumb, there's two thumbs. So you wouldn't necessarily find that in a copy. Because if you're just copying someone's artwork, wouldn't you just already know how the composition is going to look?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Why would you mess up the thumb?

[Lizzie Logan]

Right. Why would you change your mind? So that sort of points to maybe this is an original by somebody. And the other thing she notices, she's like, okay, I'm trying to touch up the mouth. And I can't. Like, this shading is so perfect. And I can't. Like, it's blowing my mind how it just, like, there's something about it. Where have I seen this before? Where have I seen this before? And she's like, I've only ever seen this mouth on one other painting, the Mona Lisa. And so she, like, goes to her art book and she, like, rips out a picture of the Mona Lisa and she, like, puts the two mouths next to each other. And she's like, this painting is by da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ugh.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's gotta be a da Vinci. While this is happening, the men who bought it are also looking into the painting's provenance. Because, of course, that's like, kind of beyond just giving your opinion. Kind of the more legit way you establish who did a painting is like, where did it come from? Yeah, they never really figure it out.

[Dana Schwartz]

They.

[Lizzie Logan]

They track it back to, like, the 50s, and then they find a painting that they think is the painting being logged in. Like, that the King Charleses would have had. So there's like, the painting goes sort of in and out of history, but.

[Dana Schwartz]

They'Re not even sure that where it's in and out is the same painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, I mean. Cause they didn't have photographs back then. So, like, it's a description of a painting that seems to be the painting. But, like, can you say for sure? It's like, Picture of Jesus by da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

And also Salvatore Mundi's were, like, a popular piece of iconography.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And like, da Vinci is spelled different, but, like, what does that mean? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So around 2008, they called the National Gallery in London. And because the National Gallery has a confirmed original da Vinci, and they're like, we should put them next to each other, See What? See what's what? And they're like, hey, we have an original da Vinci. And the National Gallery is like, do you know how many fucking phone calls we get every week from people who think they found original da Vinci?

[Dana Schwartz]

Especially after the Da Vinci Code.

[Lizzie Logan]

Especially after the Da Vinci Code. And people watch Antiques Roadshow and they're like, no, no, no, let me send you a picture. Like, this is. This is good. The mouth.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, the mouth is really good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And they're like, okay, this actually looks kind of good. So let's send me the painting. Send me the painting. And Luke Sison, who is a curator there, he is sort of a hotshot. He maybe is itching for a discovery.

[Dana Schwartz]

The bad boy of the art world.

[Lizzie Logan]

Maybe a little bit. Maybe a bad boy of the masters. The old masters. Is he? Do you know him?

[Dana Schwartz]

No. I just love the idea that there is someone who people would consider the bad boy of the art world. I remember when I was in high school, I used to be a ticket taker at an outdoor concert venue where the Chicago Symphony Orchestra sometimes played. And there was like a. A monthly magazine that was like, you know, for the venue. And it feels like every month there was always a cover of a guy in like a scarf. And it would always be like the bad boy of opera.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm just picturing Darren Aronofsky in that photo that people were like, he plays a drama teacher on Disney Channel called Mr. Z. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And that's who I'm picturing for this curator.

[Lizzie Logan]

He doesn't. He looks like a normal English guy, but you could picture him how he'd.

[Dana Schwartz]

Be picturing Darren Aronofsky in a scarf.

[Lizzie Logan]

Great. I also, way later on Jerry Saltz will get involved in this, who is not a bad boy, but he is.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sort of the like, enfantarib.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's very much the enfantribe. Or he's the like, he's the fuck you, man.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's sort of the Uncle Tareeb of the artwork.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's the stand up comedian of the artwork. The podcaster, maybe a little bit. Yeah, he's the like Unwoke Austin comedian. He's also not wrong about this painting. But anyway, I can't wait.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, keep going.

[Lizzie Logan]

So they send us to the National Gallery and Luke Sison, who is a curator there, he calls up some experts, a few from America, a few from Britain, a few from Italy, and he is like, okay, let's have them all look at the painting and we'll just have a conversation about it. And very crucially, I think he doesn't want them to say yes or no. And I think that's because he doesn't want them to say no.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And if you don't ask the question, you can't get an answer. But I also think, like, what would a yes or no even. Like he just wants them to have a conversation. Like, I think this is fine.

[Dana Schwartz]

Even just having a conversation though is like he's trying to raise controversy and attention. Because even by saying, is this picture by da Vinci? You're implying that it might be by da Vinci.

[Lizzie Logan]

What he's saying is, what do you think of this picture? Okay. So he invites people to come look at the painting and give their thoughts. And before I tell you what their thoughts are, I thought this would be a good time for us to look at the painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And give our thoughts.

[Dana Schwartz]

I would love to. Okay. I'm looking at a restored version of the painting. It's nice. I think the blue is. Jesus is wearing like a blue robe shirt. And that looks really nice.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So what you have on the left is the painting cleaned up. So all of the over painting has been taken off and all of the varnish has been taken off. And you can see painting from the old times and also a lot of damage.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And then on the right is like, plus a lot of painting by Diane Modestini. Sure. And it will continue to get even more painted by Diane Modestini over the years. She continues kind of like fucking with it. But just tell us, tell the listener what you see and what you think.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's Jesus with some really nice long brown curls, holding up two fingers, you know, in a sort of, you know, blessing. And then in his other hand is either holding. I mean, it looks like a nothing. Like it looks like a clear glass orb. And I don't know if it was because someone was going to paint a globe there or not, or they just wanted a clear thing. He's holding like a clear blob in his other hand and he's wearing a nice blue robe.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay, lovely. So I am going to just put point out some things that a person can see with the naked eye.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

So the first is that Jesus is looking at you straight on and sort of facing the viewer. And that would have been very atypical for da Vinci. He liked to paint figures in a much more dynamic style. So the Mona Lisa is famously at like a three quarter turn and then she's sort of looking over her shoulder at the viewer. So a lot of people immediately upon seeing this were like, Da Vinci would never choose such a boring composition.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. It looks like a school photo composition.

[Lizzie Logan]

It does look like a school photo. And then other experts are like, well, that's how you do Salvador Mundi's is that it's a boring composition. And then other people are like, well, but you don't have to. That's just how most people did it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Well, if he's such a genius, why wouldn't he do a fun thing? And also, it's a boring background.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's a very boring background. It's just black.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And then other people are like, well, but if it were a commission, maybe he had to. So this is the. You could just. We could be here for hours arguing about this. But I'm just pointing out some stuff. Yeah. The ringlets are really beautifully done. Not a lot of painters would have been able to pull off those ringlets.

[Dana Schwartz]

The bounce, the highlights.

[Lizzie Logan]

But the other parts of the hair are. Don't look very good.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. They're sort of matte and flat.

[Lizzie Logan]

The hand, also really nice looking. But the hand that's holding the orb is kind of crammed into the corner.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. It sort of doesn't look actually where a hand would be.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, it doesn't feel like anatomically correct.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And da Vinci, famously a student of anatomy.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

The orb. So it's people, after studying it for a while, they decide that it's supposed to be like a solid glass or crystal orb. And looking through one of those, anything that is touching the orb would be, like, only slightly distorted. But if you're looking through solid crystal, this is literally what people argue about looking through solid crystal. Anything that's like an inch behind it, like his robe would actually be seen inverted.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's not inverted. And da Vinci would have known that because he's a scientist. Yep. So people are like, obviously this is not by da Vinci because he would have known to invert it. But then other people say, well, it's a painting of Jesus. He's not going to stick a big upside down thing in the corner.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, then why would he paint it transparent?

[Lizzie Logan]

Great question. People also say, like, listen, this is a boring painting. Jesus looks kind of stoned. Like, I just don't like it very much. And I don't think it's by da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm gonna hot take. And I don't think it's by da Vinci.

[Lizzie Logan]

Okay.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's my instincts on seeing it. I'm just like, it looks kind of muddied and I know that that might be some of the restoration. The background's boring, the hand is really good and the hair is really good. But I think da Vinci wasn't the only person who could paint a good hand, paint a good curl.

[Lizzie Logan]

These are things that are, like, sort of visible to the naked eye, but that, like, only a scholar would notice. That also come out of this conversation that they have. They do say, like, okay, this is not like some yokel who went into his backyard with oil paints.

[Dana Schwartz]

Do they, like, carbon date it?

[Lizzie Logan]

Here's the thing, I assume, because wouldn't that be like, the first thing you do?

[Dana Schwartz]

Maybe they can, like, tell the canvas is actually from the 1500s.

[Lizzie Logan]

So it's painted on a thing of wood.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, sure, sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's the type of wood that da Vinci would have used, but it's not a very, like, high quality piece of wood. Which also becomes part of the debate. They do later. They do, like, pigment analysis, and it is made of the stuff that they used to make pigments. Like, it's like the green has copper in it. And like the. Basically they're like, this is from 1500.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yep.

[Lizzie Logan]

This is from the da Vinci school. So it might be from his. It might be from him. It might be from his workshop. It might be from, like, Florence. Like, people being influenced by his style, but they're like, listen, it's crazy that it ended up in New Orleans, but like, yeah, seems like it's from 1500s Florence.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

The beard and mustache are really weird because they're not there, but it looks like they used to be there because there's weird, like, dark shadows.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

But it's. Yeah, it's not like some flim. Flammy. You know, this isn't from the 80s.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's not like an obvious hoax.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, it's not like an obvious hoax. And one thing that gets pointed out is that there seems to be over one of Jesus's eyes, like the heel of your hand, like a heel print that apparently da Vinci liked to do to create sort of like a blurred effect in the paint. That was sort of. His signature was the Sfumato look, which was the nice, blurred, foggy, misty look.

[Dana Schwartz]

Her.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

In the new podcast Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead, the other tried for murder. Not once people went wild, not twice, stunned, but three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of A hill. But little by little, their dream starts to crumble and our couple retreat from reality.

[Lizzie Logan]

They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

We have to think of something, something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

Almost 10 years.

[Lizzie Logan]

10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Goodbye.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu Every single episode.

[Lizzie Logan]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.

[Ed Helms]

Basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes. It's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm like, oh, wow.

[Ed Helms]

Angela and Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Lizzie Logan]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Lizzie Logan]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's, let's, let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

All I know is what I've been told and that to have truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her. We know.

[Maggie Freeling]

A story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Dana Schwartz]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Dana Schwartz]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Lizzie Logan]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured.

[Dana Schwartz]

Gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava for Good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Lizzie Logan]

America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Ed Helms]

Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcast.

[Lizzie Logan]

One of the scholars is like, this painting is by da Vinci. And the reason I know that is that it's such a good painting that only da Vinci could have done it. So best painting ever, therefore, was painted by the best painter ever.

[Dana Schwartz]

I actually just have issue with that train of thought for almost anything.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, I just don't. I think there's very few things where someone is such a genius that they are the only person capable of doing it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like that. I just. That doesn't. That doesn't hold water to me. But continue. I'm not an expert.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's. I mean, even the experts aren't. But this is his thing. He's like, this is just such a good painting. And I am so affected by it. I vote da Vinci. You know what?

[Dana Schwartz]

Life is boring. Take a hard stand. Why not?

[Lizzie Logan]

One of the experts, by the exact same reasoning, comes to the opposite conclusion. Is like, da Vinci was such a genius, he never could have painted such a bad painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Why not?

[Lizzie Logan]

Which is equally stupid. Because everyone can do bad art.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And also, everyone just, like, has sort of lazy days. Everyone's just sort of like, eh, I just sort of threw this in the shit.

[Lizzie Logan]

Also, like, maybe he didn't throw it. I don't know.

[Dana Schwartz]

Maybe he was just, like, noodling around with something.

[Lizzie Logan]

Everyone else is like, somewhere in the middle.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So people are like, okay. The. A lot of people are like you. They're like the hands and the ringlets. I would guess maybe, like a student did it and he touched up the hands and the ringlets.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. But it seems like he wouldn't do the composition because it's a pretty boring composition. Like, Jesus's other hand is sort of crammed in the corner. Also, attribution changes every 20 years, so I don't know. Talk to me in 200 years. But definitely interesting painting. Good, good find.

[Dana Schwartz]

Good find.

[Lizzie Logan]

Good find.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, good find.

[Lizzie Logan]

Glad you found it. But, yeah, I don't know.

[Dana Schwartz]

It seems hard to be able to prove that da Vinci did it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And the way these things are settled is not that anyone proves it, it's that a consensus is formed.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And so they're not reaching a consensus. Nobody wants to really stick their neck out. They will come to the consensus that it has now been over, restored. They're basically saying, this is a really beautiful painting by Diane Modestini.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, Diane.

[Lizzie Logan]

The joke at the time, like, this belongs in a contemporary art museum because it was painted in 2005.

[Dana Schwartz]

That's. Yeah, that's a good one.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Good, good burn on art restored. Diane. Modesty and bad boy of the National Gallery, Luke Sison, hears this and he's like, so what you're telling me is that this was 1000% painted by Leonardo da Vinci and nobody else? And I can quote you on that.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yep. Around 2010, 2011, the National Gallery does a big da Vinci exhibition where. And they display the Salvador Mundi. They say this is by da Vinci. What?

[Dana Schwartz]

They don't even have, like a controversy section on the Wikipedia of their museum.

[Lizzie Logan]

They could have said da Vinci workshop. They could have said attributed to da Vinci. They don't. They say by da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

They could have said possibly by da Vinci. Allegedly. Wow.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, they say by da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

See, he is the bad boy of the art world. I was so right.

[Lizzie Logan]

You were 100% right. So it was a loan. After that, it goes back to its owners and they're like, great, now that it has been officially attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, time to sell it. So they call in Warren Adelson, who is a big time art dealer.

[Dana Schwartz]

Is this new? Is this London guy getting a cut?

[Lizzie Logan]

I don't think so.

[Dana Schwartz]

Or has he just got the popularity of people coming to his museum?

[Lizzie Logan]

I think it's more about that and kind of like the ego.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like they might not have told him that they ever planned to sell it because there's like controversy over whether he would have even been allowed to exhibit it if he had known that it was gonna be for sale.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Because like, doing attribution for something that's gonna be for sale is like a whole nother thing. But then, like, I've watched a lecture from him where he basically talks about, like, listen, museum curators fudge attribution in order to get loans because they want them for the Exhibit. And, like, I get that. Like, whatever. You know what I mean?

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, so whether he was in.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do what you gotta do so that people could see the art.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, they're selling it, and they're saying it was by da Vinci.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And they're saying the National Gallery signed off on this.

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, they. It did.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So they. And to their credit, Ish. They're like, we want to sell this to a museum.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. That's who you should sell it to.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And so they call in Warren Adelson and they're like, we want to sell it to museum. We think it's worth, you know, just like, one to $200 million.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

Which at the time, would make it, like, for sure one of the more expensive paintings of all time.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yep.

[Lizzie Logan]

So they start calling around, and no museum can raise the money. And a lot of them are interested, but none can raise the money. One museum in Berlin is like, why would we want this? This is by Diane. Modesty. Yeah. And they kind of. You need to have a little finesse when you're trying to sell a painting, and they do not have enough finesse. And it's been rejected too many times, so now collectors don't want it because it's like the whole idea of investing in art is that you think the value's gonna go up. And if it's already been rejected, why would I buy something that nobody wants?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Oof.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So it just sits there in New York for a couple of years. Diane keeps, like, fucking with it, and it is just, like, on ice for a couple years. Okay, let me take you to the fall of the Soviet Union. Fall of the Soviet Union. This man, his name is Dmitry Rybolovlev.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay, excellent pronunciation.

[Lizzie Logan]

Possibly because I feel six of one, half dozen of the other. I don't want to be disrespectful and mispronounce his name. So I'm going to be disrespectful in that I'm going to call this man by his first name, Demetrius. We're going to call him Dimitri. This guy named Dimitri, he buys, like, all the potassium in Russia because, you know, everything was owned by the government, so then everything was for sale. He buys all the potassium in Russia and becomes like, a big time fertilizer magnate. And then one of the potassium mines collapses and a whole city starts sinking into sinkholes, and it becomes a big ecological disaster. And so he's like, I'm going to take my billions of dollars and fuck off to Geneva and Monaco as one does. He has since been cleared of wrongdoing. But I think he's like, I think I'm just gonna go be a rich guy and be surrounded by my bodyguards. Anyway, while he's in Europe, he meets a man named Yves Boubier. Yves spelled, like, Yves Saint Laurent. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Fancy Y eves.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. Yves is the owner of a string of freeports.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

So freeports are. They're basically storage facilities that are at airports. So they're tax havens because your stuff never goes through customs, so it never has to be declared, so it never gets taxed.

[Dana Schwartz]

Must be so fun to be a rich person.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, Slash, like, really icky and stressful, actually, because these are, like, some of the most valuable pieces of art in the world, and no one can even see them.

[Dana Schwartz]

I remember feeling that when I was walking through the Vatic. I went to Italy. I went to the Vatican. And the Vatican just has so much art that some of it's just, like, on the floor. Like, you're, like, going through, like, peeking your head into these rooms, and it's just like wall to wall sculptures. Like sculptures, like, stacked on the floor. And there's, like. They just have so much.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're lousy with it.

[Dana Schwartz]

They're lousy with it.

[Lizzie Logan]

They're lousy with it.

[Dana Schwartz]

So these freeports.

[Lizzie Logan]

So these freeports, they're just, like, a place where people can just keep gold and art and other things that they don't want to pay taxes on. And they even found there's a number of documentaries about this painting, and they even found some, like, rich, fat cat to be in one of them who literally says, like, you know, if the taxes were more reasonable, we wouldn't need these. And I'm like, you have a yacht. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Pay your taxes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Pay your taxes. Anyway, so because Yves owns these freeports, he sort of has, like, his nose in the art world a little bit, and he knows what's up in the art world. And he becomes a art consultant for Dimitri because he knows what's happening. And Demetri, according to Eaves, mostly enjoys nude images. But for whatever reason, he stumbles upon the Salvatore Mundi, which is just sitting in New York. And he's like, I really like this painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Something about it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Something about it just speaks to me. And Yves is like, dude, this painting is, like, really overpriced and not good.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, it's like damaged goods at this point.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, like this. It's just like an ugly painting of Jesus. Like, it's not cool. Dimitri's like, no, like, I want this painting. Make it happen. And they're like, all right, let's go to New York and look at the painting. So they go to New York, they get the painting. They, like, go to a penthouse, and they look at the painting in person. And Dimitri's like, I love this painting. I need this painting. And Yves is like, all right, I'll make it happen. And they want all of this to be anonymous. Sure. So they're going through Sotheby's. So for whatever reason, they have to do the negotiations in Paris. They can't just stay in New York, obviously.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. Paris. Negotiations for art deals.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So where the players are is, I think Warren Adelson handles the negotiations on the seller side in Paris. Sotheby's is in New York. Eves and his poker player friend, because that's who you get to do negotiations, obviously, as a poker player. They're in Paris. Dimitri is on his yacht. Sotheby's is handling the transaction between. They're going to sell the painting to a shell company owned by Eves that is then going to sell the painting to Demetri so that it can remain anonymous.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

And at the end of a very long day of negotiation, Eves texts or emails Demetri and is like, that was harsh. I know you didn't want to pay more than $130 million. Got them down to $127.5 million. The painting is yours. You're welcome, homie. I'm gonna take my 2% commission and pleasure doing business. You know, we've done a lot of paintings together, and, you know, enjoy your yacht. You will have the painting soon.

[Dana Schwartz]

Job well done all around.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'll store it in one of my freeports for you. And that is the story. I'm just kidding. Couple years later, okay, a reporter in New York is like, hey, whatever happened to that painting? Yeah, that maybe was by da Vinci, but maybe wasn't. And he's like, oh, it got sold through Sotheby's, huh?

[Dana Schwartz]

For $127.5 million.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, he starts calling around, and he writes an article, and he can't get an exact answer because they're not. They don't want to talk. And he can't find out who the buyer was.

[Dana Schwartz]

Shell company, anonymous.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but he writes an article, and he talks to Sotheby's and he talks to the sellers, and he writes an article about how it was sold for, like, $80 million.

[Dana Schwartz]

80 million, you say?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So see, this is where, again, this is my speculation that Eaves might have not counted on America having a free press.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So Demetri reads this, and he's like, eve, do you owe me $50 million?

[Dana Schwartz]

I have commission back, I imagine.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, yeah. And Eve's is like, oh, interesting, interesting, interesting. See, you thought that I was a broker helping you buy this painting. Oh, I'm an art dealer. I buy low, sell high. I bought a painting and then I sold it to you. Mmm.

[Dana Schwartz]

He bought it for 80, sold it for 120.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. And I've been doing this with every single piece of art that I've helped you with. So I have made a billion dollars off of you Eaves. And it is all legal because it's a show company. What are you gonna do?

[Dana Schwartz]

This is so funny, because this is sort of the hoax of the episode, but really, it's just a guy doing a job and a guy who wasn't paying close enough attention.

[Lizzie Logan]

And it's also, like, one gross, oily rich guy scamming off another gross, oily rich guy.

[Dana Schwartz]

He owns Freeports.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

You should know. He's a rich guy scammer.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Also, like, the art world is so opaque and almost completely unregulated that it's just insane.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God. I can't believe this is happening to rich people.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Imagine getting scammed out of, like, $50 million and you, like, kind of didn't notice. You had no idea until a journalist wrote about it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Wow.

[Dana Schwartz]

Is Eve still around? Has someone bumped him yet?

[Lizzie Logan]

I think he's, like, pretty scared, right?

[Dana Schwartz]

He's, like, making really rich people mad.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So Demetri is like, well, not only am I suing you.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm also suing Sotheby's.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

I also hate all my art now. Oh. Because it all reminds me of how I overpaid for all my art.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So he's like, well, I hate Sotheby's. So I'm gonna call Christie's and I'm gonna sell all my art. Christie's, will you take all my art? And Christie's is like, yeah, Russian billionaire. We'll take literally all of your art. We have no fucking clue what to do with this weird ass. Maybe Da Vinci painting, But we're not going to take all but one of your art pieces. We want to make this Russian billionaire happy, so we'll take all of it. And they're quite smart about how they position this. We're now into 2017.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

They are like, okay, if we put this in an auction of, like, old masters paintings, then they're gonna Be comparing it to other works which have like much better papers, much more legit provenance. Like it's not gonna look that good.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

If we put it with like contemporary art and we go for a bunch of like new money types who are just what they're calling like trophy hunters who just want the name recognition from the frickin Da Vinci Code. Maybe we can just get like some dumb money out of people.

[Dana Schwartz]

And also the controversy.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. So what they do they for I think the first time ever for like a big auction house, they hire an outside marketing company to drum up some publicity around this painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Smart.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And they put together a whole campaign. They call it the Last da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, that's a good title.

[Lizzie Logan]

This is the last da Vinci that's ever gonna get. This is your last chance to ever own a piece of history, a piece of art, greatness.

[Dana Schwartz]

The final piece of the code.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes, the final piece of the code. Jesus himself. You know, fuck. The last supper where he's sharing the stage with, you know, a bunch of apostles. This is just Jesus.

[Dana Schwartz]

This is his graduation photo.

[Lizzie Logan]

It really does look. Graduation photo. And they put it on display at Christie's. It gets its own room. It's just a dark room, black walls, black floor. And it is like surrounded by sort of almost like strobe lights so that it appears to glow. And they make this video where the camera is positioned right below the painting, facing at the viewer and the video. The painting is not in the video. It's just people's reactions to the painting. Because there's something called Stendahl syndrome where people keep bursting into tears looking at the painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wow. They really, this marketing company really nailed it.

[Lizzie Logan]

They really nailed it. People are lined up around the block to look at the painting. You know who shows up?

[Dana Schwartz]

Who?

[Lizzie Logan]

Leonardo DiCaprio.

[Dana Schwartz]

Wow.

[Lizzie Logan]

His eye, he wells up a little bit looking at the screen. His namesake. Yeah. Leo. Leo.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's true. No. Leonardo DiCaprio is named Leonardo because his mom first felt him kick when she was looking into Leonardo da Vinci painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he first felt a human emotion looking at. I'm just kidding. I'm sure he's a totally normal guy. It's very cheesy, but you know, whatever. People like art. People like art.

[Dana Schwartz]

People like controversy.

[Lizzie Logan]

People like controversy. Also, like, of all the things to pull cheesy tabloid moves about, like if it gets people talking about art history, like, go for it. You know what I mean? Like, this is so much better than speculating about people, private lives.

[Dana Schwartz]

Also the entire art world is just A shelf. Nothing. Nothing is worth that much money. So it's all just investing for your tax purposes and your tax havens, whatever. So it's all silly and stupid.

[Lizzie Logan]

Dana, you're extremely speaking my language.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's meaningless.

[Lizzie Logan]

They go on a whole. They bring this painting onto Good Morning America or whatever. And it's very funny how much people just buy the marketing materials.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

They.

[Dana Schwartz]

I mean, if you tell anyone. No one. Very, very few people are historical art experts. And so if you tell almost anyone. This painting is amazing and it's important, and it's probably by Leonardo da Vinci. Then they look at the painting. They'll believe you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. And there's a great clip where this, like, very excited Christie's guy comes on Good Morning America, and he's showing maybe just a picture of the painting, but one of the hosts is like, now tell me, why do they call it the male Mona Lisa? And it's like, because Christie's called it the male Mona Lisa. Like, that was a marketing term they made up. And now they're like, tell us about why art historians call it. That's like, no, they made that up.

[Dana Schwartz]

I am so. This is so resonating with me. Cause I'm, like, dumb with art.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And so I go to a museum, and I love art museum. But I will fully confess that sometimes I'm, like, walking through, like, paintings, and I read who did it. And it's until I recognize a name where I'm like, oh, this one must be good. Oh, Monet. I've heard of him. This one must be a good one. And then I'm like, I'll look at this one for a little longer. Cause I assume it's good.

[Lizzie Logan]

That's why we need museums to tell us what paintings are good.

[Dana Schwartz]

Tell me what to look at, and I'll enjoy it. I'll have a great afternoon.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Thank you, curators. And I will also say, you know what? Christie's is not a museum. It is an auction house. And it is their job to get the best possible price for their clients. So, like, I get that. Like, go for it. The auction is held November 2017, and it is expected to meet or beat the record for the most expensive paintings sold at auction.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

Would you like to know some of the most expensive paintings and artworks sold at auction?

[Dana Schwartz]

I would love to.

[Lizzie Logan]

So there are private sales for hundreds of millions of dollars pretty often, but we don't really know about those at this point. So November 2017, at this point, the record is held by David Geffen. Heard of him who bought a Picasso at auction for 180 million in 2015. There's also a Van Gogh that's like yellow sunflowers in a vase with a yellow background.

[Dana Schwartz]

Classic Van Gogh.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yep. That was sold for the modern equivalent of over $100 million in the 80s. Just to sort of set the trend of how these are going to give more context about how much various artworks are worth. The Mona Lisa was assessed for insurance purposes in 1962 at $100 million. Taking inflation into account, it's worth about a billion dollars. But of course, it is not for sale. Yeah. So it is technically not.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's like, what is anything worth?

[Lizzie Logan]

It's not priced at anything because it is not for sale. Yeah. And Jeff Koons holds the record. I don't know what the record is, but it's. He got the most for a living artist.

[Dana Schwartz]

Good for him.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. For one of his sculptures. I just think it's interesting. Like, again, the art world is almost completely unregulated. Assessing the value of a piece of art is like really mercurial art in itself. Yeah. David Cho is a graffiti artist and he painted the Facebook offices in return for, quote, unquote, sweat equity, which means that he got stock in the company really early on, which then he sold for $200 million, which is great. I don't know that anyone is saying that he did $200 million worth of graffiti.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. And it's not like that graffiti could be sold for $200 million.

[Lizzie Logan]

Or could it? I don't know. Or that he could ever do an equivalent amount of art that then would be sold for $200 million. Like, so, you know, people use art as collateral a lot to get loans.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So banks are sometimes pricing art. I mean, they have art experts. Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

What is anything worth? At the end of the day, it's all arbitrary.

[Lizzie Logan]

The value isn't necessarily intrinsic. Like, if you have a piece of art by someone who, A, is no longer alive to make new pieces, and B, we don't necessarily know how many pieces there are, you have reason to not want there to be more pieces discovered because that would lower the value of your piece. Yep. So everybody who already owns a da Vinci doesn't want there to be more Da Vinci's.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Because the fewer da Vincis there are, the more valuable their da Vinci is.

[Dana Schwartz]

It makes sense to me.

[Lizzie Logan]

So who is biased? Who is not? Christie's can totally pay experts. Like, museums aren't necessarily supposed to pay professors to say stuff, but, like, there's nothing stopping Christie's from doing that.

[Dana Schwartz]

Look, cereal companies are paying people to say cereal's healthy or whatever, all which.

[Lizzie Logan]

To say this is very opaque and unregulated.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

In the new podcast, Hell in Heaven, two young Americans move to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one will end up dead, the other tried for murder not once people went wild, not twice, stunned, but three times. John and Anne Bender are rich and attractive and they're devoted to each other. They create a nature reserve and build a spectacular circular home high on the top of a hill. But little by little, their dream starts. Starts to crumble and our couple retreat from reality.

[Lizzie Logan]

They lose it. They actually lose it. They sort of went nuts.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

Until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

Almost 10 years.

[Lizzie Logan]

10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to My favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Goodbye.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms. And welcome back to Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu every single episode.

[Lizzie Logan]

32 lost nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?

[Dana Schwartz]

Ernie Shackleton sounds like a solid 70s.

[Ed Helms]

Basketball player who still wore knee pads. Yes, it's going to be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of guests. The great Paul Scheer made me feel good. I'm like, oh, wow, Angela is. And Jenna, I am so psyched you're here.

[Lizzie Logan]

What was that like for you to soft launch into the show?

[Ed Helms]

Sorry, Jenna, I'll be asking the questions today.

[Lizzie Logan]

I forgot whose podcast we were doing.

[Ed Helms]

Nick Kroll. I hope this story is good enough to get you to toss that sandwich. So let's see how it goes. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

All I know is what I've been told and that's a half truth is a whole lie.

[Maggie Freeling]

For almost a decade, the murder of an 18 year old girl from a small town in Graves County, Kentucky, went unsolved until a local homemaker, a journalist, and a handful of girls came forward with a story.

[Dana Schwartz]

I'm telling you, we know Quincy killed her.

[Maggie Freeling]

We know a story that law enforcement used to convict six people and that got the citizen investigator on national tv.

[Dana Schwartz]

Through sheer persistence and nerve, this Kentucky housewife helped give justice to Jessica Curran.

[Maggie Freeling]

My name is Maggie Freeling. I'm a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist producer, and I wouldn't be here if the truth were that easy to find.

[Dana Schwartz]

I did not know her and I did not kill her or rape or burn or any of that other stuff that y' all said.

[Lizzie Logan]

They literally made me say that I took a match and struck and threw it on her. They made me say that I poured.

[Dana Schwartz]

Gas on her.

[Maggie Freeling]

From Lava. For good. This is Graves County, a show about just how far our legal system will go in order to find someone to blame.

[Lizzie Logan]

America, y' all better wake the hell up.

[Ed Helms]

Bad things happens to good people and small towns.

[Maggie Freeling]

Listen to Graves county in the Bone Valley feed on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to binge the entire season ad free, subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

Back to the auction. After 20 minutes, it comes down to two bidders, both of whom are being represented by proxies on the phone. Would you like to guess how much it went for and who bought it?

[Dana Schwartz]

$120 million. $150 million. $200 million.

[Lizzie Logan]

Lizzie. $250 million. $400 million. $400 million. Well, the winning bid was $400 million because you have to pay Christie's a fee. It went for $450.3 million.

[Dana Schwartz]

Jesus.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, my God. They should feed the hungry children.

[Lizzie Logan]

They really should.

[Dana Schwartz]

Just like, makes me sick to my stomach. It's not great that people are paying this much for a picture that maybe was by da Vinci. And even if it was, what then who's that gonna feed?

[Lizzie Logan]

I know, I know.

[Dana Schwartz]

Help. Children.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do you have any idea who bought it? Do you want to just throw some guesses out? Just rich people.

[Dana Schwartz]

I don't know. That Eve's guy again wanted it. Geffen again.

[Lizzie Logan]

No. Okay. It's not Bezos.

[Dana Schwartz]

Not Bezos. I don't know.

[Lizzie Logan]

Zuckerberg?

[Dana Schwartz]

No, I'm running out of rich guys. Thiel, the PayPal guy?

[Lizzie Logan]

No, not Peter Thiel. I'll give you nobody in China.

[Dana Schwartz]

No one in China. Someone in Tech. Tech money?

[Lizzie Logan]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

How'd he make his money? Warren Buffett?

[Lizzie Logan]

No.

[Dana Schwartz]

How'd he make his money?

[Lizzie Logan]

Nepo, baby.

[Dana Schwartz]

The shipping heir that Paris Hilton dated.

[Lizzie Logan]

You're getting closer.

[Dana Schwartz]

Who is it?

[Lizzie Logan]

Listeners, I'm going to give you five seconds to write down your answer, and then we're going to find out. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. If you said the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, you're correct.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, I should have gotten that. Yeah, that makes sense.

[Lizzie Logan]

Dana, off the top of your head, can you think of a reason it's weird that the crown prince of Saudi.

[Dana Schwartz]

Arabia bought a painting of Jesus because he's Muslim? Yeah. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Can you tell me why that's weird?

[Dana Schwartz]

Well, it's like. Cause he doesn't want this as art. He just wants this as, like, what, a tax write off or something?

[Lizzie Logan]

Because one of the things you're not supposed to do in Islam, in addition to not eating pork, is have paintings of prophets.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, that's very. You're very smart. Yeah. God.

[Lizzie Logan]

So for those who don't know, it's okay to learn new things in Islam, as it is sort of traditionally practiced, you're not really supposed to have artworks of people. Actually, you're not supposed to display artworks of people because nothing is supposed to be above Allah, but you're really not supposed to have. So obviously the Prophet Muhammad is, like, their main guy.

[Dana Schwartz]

And you should, as I've learned, really not.

[Lizzie Logan]

World tragedies really not supposed to depict the Prophet Muhammad. Yeah, it would have been a big issue for Christie's if they'd done that. But Muslims also, like, rock with Jesus. Like, he is not their savior, but they do recognize him as a prophet. So having a painting of him is, like, pretty weird. Like, pretty sketch. And, like, what's he gonna do with it? Put it up in his palace?

[Dana Schwartz]

No, he can't.

[Lizzie Logan]

He can't.

[Dana Schwartz]

But it's just right for, like, bragging rights.

[Lizzie Logan]

Really, really questionable.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

So immediately just, like, red flags all over the place.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh.

[Lizzie Logan]

All right. Let's learn a little bit about the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's probably a great guy, I'm guessing.

[Lizzie Logan]

No, he definitely oversaw the beheading of that journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, whose name, I'm sorry, I probably mispronounced. Mohammed bin Salman, or mbs, as people tend to call him, is effectively the leader of the country. His father is the king, but his father is not well. So MBS is in charge. In November 2017, things are tense in Saudi Arabia. He had just like a week and a half prior, imprisoned like, a hundred fellow government officials and High ranking businessmen in the Ritz in Riyadh.

[Dana Schwartz]

Oh, great.

[Lizzie Logan]

As part of a so called corruption purge, which was basically, he was trying to get them to turn over like hundreds of millions of dollars. Yep. Saudi Arabia's economy is almost entirely based on oil. And so when the price of oil is low, it doesn't do well. And so they're trying to diversify, which will come up in a second. He positions himself as a reformer and also preaches austerity measures. But he had recently bought a very tacky $300 million chateau in France.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, but what a bargain when it's less than a painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, but he'd also bought a $400 million yacht. So like, plus the painting, it's, it's a lot. And women also can't drive in Saudi Arabia, which is not related to the painting. But just for context.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, for context.

[Lizzie Logan]

Just for context. Women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia at this time. Apparently the tip that finally broke the story that he was the buyer was from because like everybody in the government in Saudi Arabia is just like his cousins and his distant cousins and also like the Bin Ladens. Apparently the tip came from one of his cousins who had been imprisoned in the Ritz and was so mad about it that he like texted the New.

[Dana Schwartz]

York Times, yeah, cousin bought this painting, this dumb painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

But as the Times is confirming this story, the Louvre comes out and says, oh, the Salvador Mundi is part of our permanent collection now. So don't, don't worry about it. Obviously it's not going to go on display in like the royal palace or whatever. And it's our, you know, it's, it's Saudi Arabia's gift to the world. It's not just like a trinket for egos sake. It's, it's not sacrilegious. It's, it's a gift from Saudi Arabia to the world. It's going up in the Louvre. So everybody be chill. It's art and it's for the people. And it's going up in the Louvre. And I know what you're thinking, Dana, you're thinking, which Louvre?

[Dana Schwartz]

That's exactly what I was thinking. There are multiple Louvre.

[Lizzie Logan]

There are three Louvres.

[Dana Schwartz]

I didn't know that.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, there are three. There's the main one that's in Paris, where the Mona Lisa is.

[Dana Schwartz]

I've been there.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yep.

[Dana Schwartz]

Not to brag, but I have been there.

[Lizzie Logan]

Brag. I have also been there. Brag. Yep. It's nice. A lot of art. A lot of art.

[Dana Schwartz]

A lot of history.

[Lizzie Logan]

A lot of art, a lot of history. There's one in Len Lens L E N S, which is a town in France that is not Paris.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure. Little satellite Louvre.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yep. And there's one in Abu Dhabi.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure. Yeah. So that's going. Going to that one.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's going to that one. Abu Dhabi. For those who don't know, it's okay to not know things. Not in Saudi Arabia.

[Dana Schwartz]

The United Arab Emirates.

[Lizzie Logan]

United Arab Emirates, which is right next to Saudi Arabia and is kind of almost like nestled into Saudi Arabia.

[Dana Schwartz]

You probably know it as the setting for Sex and the City too.

[Lizzie Logan]

I was gonna bring it up, but.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, you know, famous for.

[Lizzie Logan]

They did saddle poor Cynthia Nixon with the line Abu Dhabi do. Oh God, they did something I can't unhear.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. United Arab Emirates, also a Muslim country, but like a little bit more tourist friendly. In addition to Abu Dhabi, they also have Dubai, so it makes a little bit more sense to go there. And also the crown prince. The two crown princes are like buds.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure.

[Lizzie Logan]

So this is coming from the Louvre. Abu Dhabi, which had like just opened at that point. So they're like, we're, we're getting the Salvador Mundi. So it's like. Okay. Makes a little bit more sense going to the Middle east.

[Dana Schwartz]

And it's going to a museum, which is good.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's going to a museum. Okay, sure. In March 2018, Christie's. I don't know that they, they received like maybe the last payment that they needed, one of the last payments. And they pack up the painting and they send it off to Saudi Arabia. And that is the last time the painting is ever in America.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

So adio's painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Goodbye painting.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. In September, the Louvre says we have a delay in displaying the painting. Painting coming soon. And everyone's like, okay, well, they're probably just saving it for November when it'll be the one year anniversary of the museum opening.

[Dana Schwartz]

Sure. Building an exhibit around it or whatever.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. November comes and goes. No painting at this point. The painting is starting to be a little bit. I'm comparing it to like Reputation Taylor's version where it's like, is it coming? Is it gonna be there?

[Dana Schwartz]

It's not coming.

[Lizzie Logan]

Like, Saudi Arabia is also building its own cultural centers because again, they're trying to move away from an oil based economy. It's really hard to describe, but if you look up Al', Ula, it's this cultural center and tourist destination that they're trying to build. It is at once a historic and geographic wonder of the world that they are now trying to turn into a museum visitors center. But they are doing this in collaboration with the French government that they announced as part of a deal that also maybe involves an arms trade. But don't look at that. Look at the cultural part.

[Dana Schwartz]

So it's like, maybe the painting's gonna go there.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. People are sort of speculating. They're like, oh, the painting now belongs to the cultural ministry, not the Crown Prince. So like, I guess it makes sense that they bought the painting. It's like an investment in Saudi Arabia's cultural future. Like, yeah, like get tourists there. Yeah, like, sure. Later in 2018. And this is now we're talking, like anonymous sources speaking on deep background. People high up in the French cultural ministry are saying Saudi Arabia has sent the painting to the Louvre, the one that's in Paris. And the Louvre has been allowed to take it out of its frame and do like, scans and like the carbon dating and the testing and like all their fancy Louvre tests. And they are writing up like a big scientific analysis. And also they're getting ready for the 500th, like, death aversary of da Vinci. They're going to do a big da Vinci exhibit and they want the Salvador Mundi on display. So they're trying to play nice with Saudi Arabia. Yeah. And they supposedly reportedly write up a program saying, we, the Louvre, say this is a da Vinci.

[Dana Schwartz]

Okay.

[Lizzie Logan]

We did all our schmancy tests and this is a da Vinci. And that probably would have kind of settled the debate, I think, because who wants to pick a fight with the Louvre? There is no expert out there who is as famous as the Louvre, who has as much name recognition to the general public as the Louvre.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. What are you going to do? You can't. It's hard to prove a negative.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's hard to prove a negative. And like, the public would have accepted it. Like, even if the academic community didn't, the public would have accepted that.

[Dana Schwartz]

If the Louvre told me this was by da Vinci, I'd be like, it was probably by da Vinci.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Jerry Saltz wouldn't be convinced. He, around the time of the auction, like, made a video for Vice where he like defaced a poster of the painting where he was like, this is not art. Great.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's doing his thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's funny. But it's also like, you're like a middle aged man. What are you doing? Ranting.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. And it's exactly that.

[Lizzie Logan]

He's doing his job. You're Right.

[Dana Schwartz]

He's doing his little thing. He's doing his little thing.

[Lizzie Logan]

All right. And so, yeah, that would have been it. It would have been in the textbooks. Except according to reportedly, allegedly. She says, he says, the crown prince says, the condition of this loan is, I want the painting hung next to the Mona Lisa. And the Louvre is like, can't do it. Mona Lisa gets her own room. It's a logistical and security nightmare. We can't move the Mona Lisa. Everybody comes to see the Mona Lisa. We can't do it. We could put it near the Mona Lisa. Or maybe when this whole big da Vinci brouhaha is over and we're having sort of like normal traffic patterns again, we could, like put them in the same room, but with this whole side by side thing. It's not. It's not workable.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yep.

[Lizzie Logan]

And he's like, okay, then you can't have it.

[Dana Schwartz]

So they're not gonna write it in the program.

[Lizzie Logan]

So they recall the booklet. They're like, destroy all copies of the booklet. But a couple copies have been leaked out. The exhibit opens. No Salvatore Mundi, no statement from the Louvre around this time. They let everybody out of the Ritz. I know you were all wondering, and women can drive in Saudi Arabia just to tie up those loose ends. But a couple copies have leaked out and journalists start calling and the Louvre is like, I don't know what you're talking about. We never tested that painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

And we can't read.

[Lizzie Logan]

And we can't read.

[Dana Schwartz]

We don't know how to read.

[Lizzie Logan]

I've never heard even of a Jesus.

[Dana Schwartz]

Someone would paint Jesus. Why?

[Lizzie Logan]

That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Da Vinci, he was mostly known for that thing with Drew Barrymore and the.

[Dana Schwartz]

Mona Lisa, which we have.

[Lizzie Logan]

Did we mention that we have? Did we mention that we have that? You should watch this movie, the Da Vinci Code. It's very good. Tom Hanks, pretty hot. Anyway. But they fully deny the Louvre is like, we can't comment on a loan. That didn't happen. And then in 2020, like, the report leaks online like, it's France. They can't keep a secret for shit.

[Dana Schwartz]

Get someone wine drunk and they'll send it out.

[Lizzie Logan]

So we don't really know. Like, chicken, egg. Like, was the Louvre truly standing behind this and the Crown Prince shot himself in the foot by being pissy or were they trying to placate him and he went too far? Like, I don't know. I don't know the story here that's so interesting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Cause it's like maybe it's like, do they genuinely believe that it is a Mona, that it is a da Vinci or were they just trying to get it?

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Because it's like, if they did, why wouldn't they just still say it even if they weren't getting it? Getting a loan.

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean. But I also, I kind of get where they're like, we're not gonna do a bunch of shit to validate this painting that we're not even displaying. Like.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, no, I get it. And it's like if they did all this like, you know, sciency stuff with the assumption that they would be displaying it, they're not just gonna do that for some guy.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. Like to increase his wealth.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

And not to benefit the people.

[Dana Schwartz]

So, Lizzie, do you think that it's really a da Vinci?

[Lizzie Logan]

I don't know. I mean, so just to wrap it up. Yeah. A little anticlimactic. It's now six years later, people have not heard hide nor hair of the painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's not on display even in Abu Dhabi.

[Lizzie Logan]

Louvre. No. No. People think it might be on his yacht. Nobody knows where it is. Diane Modestini, anytime anyone asks her about it, she's just like, oh my God, please put it in a temperature controlled room. Like, she's just very care. She just cares about the painting a lot. And she's like, you just have to reframe it every couple of years because blah, blah, blah, blah. My hot take is that if a painting is valued above a certain amount, similar to like how even if you own and live inside a landmark building, you can't like do certain things to it. Yeah. If a artwork you own is valued above a certain amount, you should have to display it like four weeks a year.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

You can't just keep it in a safe in a free port.

[Dana Schwartz]

And when people say, well, what's the value if you paid that much for it? Yeah, yeah. If you paid X amount of money, like over $50 million for a painting, people should be allowed to see it.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, people should be allowed to see it.

[Dana Schwartz]

Like, it's a great take.

[Lizzie Logan]

You cannot keep priceless treasures to yourself. You know, it would be, it would be like saying you're not allowed to see the pyramids. You know what I mean? Like humanity gets to see masterpieces.

[Dana Schwartz]

And you are the person who is saying with your money that it is worth that much.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

So if it's worth that much, people get to see it. Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

Do I think that it's. Well, see, this is. I want to open the floor for discussion. To me, this whole thing was like really reminding me of the ship of Theseus. Because it's like, what is a da Vinci Is anything he touched with his paintbrush even once a da Vinci is anything anyone else touched with their paintbrush even once. Not a da Vinci. Like, because it is for sure a Modestini. Like, she painted large parts of that canvas. No question.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, definitely a Modestini.

[Lizzie Logan]

I have no problem saying, like the hand and the ringlets and the sfumato print. Like, sure, I want to believe. You know what I mean? Like, if you tell me, like, no, only da Vinci could have done those. And if you say that he probably didn't do the rest. Is it a collab? Like, I don't know. I still think it's a really interesting piece of art history in that way. But I also don't like. I just don't love the painting.

[Dana Schwartz]

Lizzy. I could not agree more. I think for me, art, like. Cause I don't know a ton about art, but I love history.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And so for me, a piece of artwork becomes really interesting to me when there's like a story behind it and around it. And so that makes this painting very interesting to me, even if I'm like kind of a natural skeptic and cynic. And so I'm like, look, statistically it kind of seems like, if anything, it was just like in his school.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's just my instinct is like, I don't know, it just seems like more likely than not that someone found. Isn't it a miracle that they found something that was like, associated and near da Vinci in New Orleans 500 years later? Like, what are the other things?

[Lizzie Logan]

I mean, it's like crazy that it is from the Renaissance.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, it's great. Great job, everyone. And what a. Lizzie, what a story.

[Lizzie Logan]

Isn't that crazy?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Lizzie Logan]

To me, this story reminds me of. Do you remember the episode of the Office Garage Sale?

[Dana Schwartz]

Yes.

[Lizzie Logan]

Where Dwight starts with a thumbtack and trades his way up to a telescope.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah. That was like also viral thing of like a guy traded a paperclip for a house.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yes. So that to me is what this is. Is like someone took a painting that was worth maybe as low as $1200. And just by sheer people, just more and more people adding their name to it turned it into $450 million just by this painting changing hands and changing hands and changing hands.

[Dana Schwartz]

Publicists. Yeah, I mean, the. Really Christie's publicists are the MVPs here.

[Lizzie Logan]

Really.

[Dana Schwartz]

It's also the idea. I mean, I think it's. I'm bastardizing the term. But the mere exposure effect of, like, if you've heard of something, you think it's better.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

And I think that, like, Dana, at an art museum, people assume if something is famous or known, that it's inherently better. And that's just not always the case because value, especially value when it comes to art, is inherently subjective.

[Lizzie Logan]

Also, is the entire art market money laundering? Yeah.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, 100%.

[Lizzie Logan]

Is this just a bunch of criminals who are trying to make it look like they are art dealers?

[Dana Schwartz]

They get to, like, launder their tax shelters in a way that makes them look fancy? Yeah, it's the fanciest way to scam taxpayers.

[Lizzie Logan]

And then my final question is, what would you do with $450 million? And you can't say, give it to charity.

[Dana Schwartz]

I wouldn't give all of it to charity. That would be so stupid of me. Could you imagine all of it? No.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah. I actually.

[Dana Schwartz]

Actually know exactly what I would do. What would you do? I would fully invest, like, fully pay for my son's college tuition. Just. That's done. That's step one.

[Lizzie Logan]

You think he's going to college? Yeah. If you have $450 million. You think your son's going to college?

[Dana Schwartz]

No, he's gonna. He's gonna be riding a jet ski. Yeah, he's gonna be riding a jet ski for his whole life. No, I, like, take care of that. I buy, like a really nice house. I go real like. Oh, my God, Lizzie, if I could tell you I want a walk in. I want a bathroom with two sinks next to each other. That'd be great.

[Lizzie Logan]

You're describing like an upper middle class.

[Dana Schwartz]

Yeah, I want an upper middle class home. And in la. And then I would buy a first class. This is actually what I would do. I would buy a first class ticket and take a long, long vacation to London and stay at this thousand dollars a night hotel that's the old war offices that they converted into a hotel. It's crazy expensive. I would go to Paris and stay at the Ritz in Paris. And that's what I would do If I had 400 million. And then that would be.

[Lizzie Logan]

And you would be allowed to leave the Ritz. Crucially, crucially.

[Dana Schwartz]

And it would be the one in Paris. And then I would also give some to charity.

[Lizzie Logan]

Sure.

[Dana Schwartz]

What would you do with $400 million?

[Lizzie Logan]

I would get a massage every day.

[Dana Schwartz]

No, that's too many massages.

[Lizzie Logan]

I think I would feel really good.

[Dana Schwartz]

I actually actively don't like a Massage. And I'm gonna tell you a reason why that's gonna make you annoyed with me.

[Lizzie Logan]

You don't like strangers touching your body?

[Dana Schwartz]

No, I just think they're. I just get antsy that I'm not being productive.

[Lizzie Logan]

I'm sorry. Yeah, you always have to. You told me that before. Yeah. Well, I think you need to chill out.

[Dana Schwartz]

I do. Maybe if a massage could get through to me, it would work. I would just. I just, like. I can't actually relax because while I'm getting a massage, I'm like, I could be doing something.

[Lizzie Logan]

Well, go do some. All right, let's end this wasteful, tedious podcast then, so you can go be productive.

[Dana Schwartz]

Podcasts are. I learned so much about the Salvatore Mundi. This is the most productive time. Lizzie, where can the good people find you?

[Lizzie Logan]

They can find me on Instagram @lizzylogan with five z's. Dana, where can good people find you?

[Dana Schwartz]

Instagram and TikTok. Dana Schwartz with only three z's at the end, Lizzie is richer in z's than I.

[Lizzie Logan]

It's true.

[Dana Schwartz]

And follow us on Hoax, the podcast on Instagram and like and subscribe and share this podcast with a friend.

[Lizzie Logan]

Yeah, give a little review. Give a little review. Give a review. Tell us your favorite painting. Great. Why not put that in?

[Dana Schwartz]

Give us your favorite painting, please. Bye Bye.

[Lizzie Logan]

Hoax is a production of I Heart Podcasts. Our hosts are Dana Schwartz and Lizzie Logan. Our executive producers are Matt Frederick and Trevor Trevor Young, with supervising producer Reema El Kayali and producers Gnomes Griffin and Jesse Funk. Our theme music was composed by Lane Montgomery. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

Two rich young Americans moved to the Costa Rican jungle to start over. But one of them will end up dead and the other tried for murder three times. It starts with a dream, a nature reserve, and a spectacular new home. But little by little, they lose it.

[Dana Schwartz]

They actually lose it.

[Podcast Trailer Narrator]

They sort of went nuts until one night, everything spins out of control. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Hey, it's Karen and Georgia, and we just celebrated our 500th episode of My Favorite Murder. That's 500 podcasts filled with true crime comedy and some light girl math. We're about to podcast for you.

[Lizzie Logan]

Watch this.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

We have to think of something to say after welcome every week. And we're doing it every week for 10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

Almost 10 years.

[Lizzie Logan]

10 years.

[Dana Schwartz]

10.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

That's what 500 episodes sounds like. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to my favorite murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dana Schwartz]

Goodbye. On this podcast, Incels, we unpack an emerging mindset.

[Lizzie Logan]

I am a loser. If I was a woman, I wouldn't date me either.

[Dana Schwartz]

A hidden world of resentment, cynicism, anger against women at a deadly tipping point.

[Lizzie Logan]

Tomorrow is the day of retribution, the.

[Dana Schwartz]

Day in which I will have my revenge. This is Incels.

[Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark]

Listen to season one of Incels on.

[Dana Schwartz]

The iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ed Helms]

Hey, it's Ed Helms, host of Snafu, my podcast about history's greatest screw ups. On our new season, we're bringing you a new Snafu. Every single episode.

[Lizzie Logan]

32 nuclear weapons. You're like, wait, stop. What?

[Ed Helms]

Yeah, it's gonna be a whole lot of history, a whole lot of funny, and a whole lot of fabulous guests. Paul Scheer, Angela and Jenna. Nick Kroll, Jordan Klepper. Listen to season four of SNAFU with Ed Helms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Lizzie Logan]

This is an iHeart podcast.