Gay Man's Painting Broke Record for Highest Price Paid: $450 Million!

Leonardo's painting of Christ before and after restoration, which recently sold for $450m.

BBC News reports:

A 500-year-old painting of Christ believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci has been sold in New York for a record $450m (£341m).

The painting is known as Salvator Mundi (Saviour of the World).

It is the highest auction price for any work of art and brought cheers and applause at the packed Christie's auction room.

See full BBC News story here.

Leonardo's sexuality has long been the subject of analysis and speculation. Leonardo's most intimate relationships were perhaps with his pupils Salai and Melzi. 

Could this be the work of a gay man?

Melzi, writing to inform Leonardo's brothers of his death, described Leonardo's feelings for his pupils as both loving and passionate. It has been claimed since the 16th century that these relationships were of a sexual or erotic nature. 

Court records of 1476, when he was 24, show that Leonardo and three other young men were charged with sodomy in an incident involving a well-known male prostitute. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and there is speculation that since one of the accused, Lionardo de Tornabuoni, was related to Lorenzo de' Medici, the family exerted its influence to secure the dismissal. 

Since that date much has been written about his presumed homosexuality and its role in his art, particularly in the androgyny and eroticism manifested in John the Baptist and Bacchus and more explicitly in a number of erotic drawings.