达芬奇画作《救世主》的神秘买家引发猜测

The staggering price paid for the last Leonardo da Vinci painting in private hands has sparked a fevered hunt for the buyer — but so far the new owner’s identity remains as inscrutable as the smile on one of the artist’s other canvases.

最后一件私人收藏的莱昂纳多?达芬奇(Leonardo da Vinci)画作以惊人价格成交，引发了外界对买家身份的狂热探寻，但到目前为止新主人的身份仍像这位艺术家另一幅作品中的微笑一样神秘。

Christie’s, the auction house that sold “Salvator Mundi” in New York on Wednesday, has remained silent about who paid $450m for the 500-year-old work — a price that set a world auction record.

佳士得(Christie’s)周三在纽约拍卖了《救世主》(Salvator Mundi)，但一直没有透露是谁花了4.5亿美元买下这件500年前的作品，该价格创下了世界拍卖纪录。

With the pool of possible buyers limited to billionaires and a very few institutions, some in the art world are trying to narrow it down to a region or nationality.

由于潜在买家群体仅限于亿万富翁和极少数机构，艺术界的一些人正试图将目标缩小到一个地区或一个国家。

Thomas Seydoux, an art adviser and former head of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s, suspects they were from Asia. Because the bidding went up in “wild increments” — at one stage leaping from $370m to $400m — he suggests the buyer was “quite new to the field and quite aggressive”, perhaps indicating new Chinese wealth. “They’re a tremendous force in the market and they’re prepared to spend that sort of money,” Mr Seydoux said.

前佳士得印象派和现代艺术负责人、艺术顾问托马斯?塞杜(Thomas Seydoux)怀疑买家来自亚洲，理由是竞价一路向上“狂飙猛涨”，一下从3.7亿美元跳到4亿美元。他认为买家“在该领域还是新手，但非常积极”，或许是中国的财富新贵。塞杜说：“他们是该市场的一股巨大力量，而且他们也准备要大笔投入。”

Asia has produced some prodigious purchasers of art lately. Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese entrepreneur, paid $110m for a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat in May. Liu Yiqian, a Chinese property and pharmaceuticals billionaire, spent $170m on a nude by Modigliani in November 2015 — but has denied buying “Salvator Mundi”.

近来亚洲已产生了一些艺术品超级买家。今年5月日本企业家前泽友作(Yusaku Maezawa)斥资1.1亿美元购买了让?米切尔?巴斯奎特(Jean-Michel Basquiat)的一幅画作。2015年11月，中国房地产和制药亿万富豪刘益谦以1.7亿美元买下莫迪利亚尼(Modigliani)的一幅裸女图，但他否认购买了《救世主》。

Others have suggested a Gulf royal or billionaire — perhaps from Qatar, which has lavishly collected art, or Abu Dhabi, which has just opened a branch of the Louvre museum. The Abu Dhabi branch has a Leonardo, “La belle ferronnière”, on loan from the Louvre in Paris but lacks its own.

还有人猜测买家是海湾地区的一名王室成员或亿万富翁，或许来自对艺术品收藏毫不吝啬的卡塔尔，又或者来自刚开设了卢浮宫(Louvre)博物馆分馆的阿布扎比。阿布扎比分馆有一幅从巴黎卢浮宫借展的达芬奇画作《费隆妮叶夫人》(La belle ferronnière)，但本身没有这位大师的画作。

Mr Seydoux pointed out that the Qataris had mainly bought late-19th and 20th-century art, reportedly including a Cézanne for $250m.

塞杜指出卡塔尔人此前主要投资十九世纪末和二十世纪的艺术品，据报道其中包括一幅以2.5亿美元成交的塞尚(Cézanne)画作。

One route to deducing the buyer is the “1-4 per cent rule”, according to art-market journalist Georgina Adam, which suggests that wealthy people should not spend more than that on any “investment of passion”. By this logic, only those with a net worth of more than $11bn would be likely buyers.

艺术市场记者乔治娜?亚当(Georgina Adam)表示推断买家的思路之一是“1%-4%规则”，即富人不应对任何“激情投资”投入其净资产4%以上。按照这一逻辑，只有净资产超过110亿美元的富豪才是可能的买家。

Few institutions could have afforded the picture. One that could is the Getty Museum in California, which has a $6.5bn endowment: in July it is estimated to have paid more than $100m for Old Master drawings. However a spokesman said it was not the purchaser of “Salvator Mundi”.

能买得起《救世主》的机构也非常少，其中一家便是位于加利福尼亚州的盖蒂博物馆(Getty Museum)，该博物馆拥有65亿美元的捐赠基金。今年7月该博物馆为早期绘画大师作品支出了估计逾1亿美元。但一位发言人表示盖蒂博物馆不是《救世主》的买家。

The painting has a troubled history. It was sold for ￡45 at Sotheby’s in London in 1958, when it was thought to be a copy, but by 2011 had been accepted as a work entirely by Leonardo, when it was included in an exhibition at the National Gallery in London. It was then reportedly bought for $75m-$80m by art adviser Yves Bouvier, who sold it to Russian collector Dmitry Rybolovlev for $127.5m.

这幅画经历颇为坎坷。1958年它在伦敦苏富比(Sotheby’s)以45英镑被售出，当时它被认为是复制品，但到了2011年当它在伦敦国家美术馆(National Gallery)展出时已被承认完全由达芬奇绘制。后来据报道，艺术顾问伊夫?布维耶(Yves Bouvier)以7500万美元至8000万美元的价格买下了这幅画，随后他以1.275亿美元卖给了俄罗斯收藏家德米特里?雷波诺列夫(Dmitry Rybolovlev) 。

Mr Rybolovlev, who is suing Mr Bouvier over this and other paintings he bought from him, alleging he was overcharged, said: “Thanks to the professionalism and expertise of Christie’s, the record-breaking sale of Da Vinci’s ‘Salvator Mundi’ has helped restore some of the value of the collection.”

雷波诺列夫正就这幅画作以及从布维耶处购买的其他作品对后者进行起诉，理由是自己被敲了竹杠。雷波诺列夫说：“感谢佳士得的专业精神和专业知识，达芬奇《救世主》破纪录的拍卖帮助收回了这幅藏品的一些价值。”

The final bid, before fees were applied, was $400m, meaning that Christie’s stands to earn $50m on the sale. However, this sum will be eroded by the various expenses of the marketing campaign waged before the sale, including transporting the artwork from London to Hong Kong, San Francisco and New York. More than 30,000 people viewed the work, according to Christie’s.

不含佣金的最终拍出价为4亿美元，这意味着佳士得在这笔交易上将赚取5000万美元。不过这笔钱将因拍卖前的各种营销费用而缩水，包括将这幅画作从伦敦运送到香港、旧金山和纽约的费用。佳士得表示逾3万人观看了该作品。

Christie’s had also secured a third party to guarantee the picture’s sale for $100m in case bids did not get that high. This system generally works by offering the guarantor a percentage of any proceeds over the guaranteed amount as a reward — so any significant percentage of that $300m could eat into Christie’s margin.

佳士得此前已获得第三方对该画以1亿美元售出的担保，以防拍卖低于这一售价。担保的一般运作方式是，向担保人支付拍卖价格高出担保金额的一个百分比作为奖励，因此这超出的3亿美元的任何较大百分比都将侵蚀佳士得的利润。