Belonging to Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev, the picture of Leonardo da Vinci at auction at the auction Christie's was sold for a record amount. The buyer offered $ 400 million for it, the total cost of the canvas was $ 450.3 million, the website of the auction house said.

Bidding lasted half an hour, the starting price of the picture was four times lower - $ 100 million.

The only known picture of Da Vinci, privately owned, has become the most expensive ever sold at auctions. Prior to this transaction, the most expensive painting sold during public auction was Pablo Picasso's Algerian Women (1955): she went under the hammer in May 2015 for $ 179.4 million. In November of the same year at Christie's auction for $ 170, 4 million was sold a painting by Italian artist and sculptor Amedeo Modigliani "Reclining Nude."

Da Vinci wrote the "Savior of the World" around 1500. The painting managed to visit the collections of royal families of Europe and was first exhibited at the auction Sotheby's in 1958. At that time, its authorship was not yet definitively established, and the picture was conditionally attributed to the "da Vinci school". The buyer paid only £ 45 for it. However, in 2011, the examination found that the "Savior of the World" belongs to the brush of Leonardo da Vinci. At the same time, the picture was presented at the National Gallery in London as part of an exhibition dedicated to the artist.

Before Rybolovlev's painting, the Swiss art dealer Yves Bouvier owned. He bought it for $ 80 million, and resold to Rybolovlev for $ 127.5 million. Subsequently, Rybolovlev accused Bouvier of fraud and went to court. According to the billionaire, Bouvier sold him paintings at an inflated price, which is why he had to overpay for them several hundred million dollars. On these charges law enforcement officers even delayed Bouvier, but he went on bail of € 10 million.

In 2017, in the Forbes rating "200 richest businessmen of Russia" Rybolovlev took the 15th line, the publication estimated his fortune at $ 7.3 billion.

Russian businessmen and art

November 15 at auction auction house Christie's sold for a record of $ 400 million canvas by Leonardo da Vinci's "Savior of the World", owned by Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev. The initial estimate of the cost of the painting is $ 100 million. The businessman is not the first time selling works of art at auctions. In March, paintings by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and René Magritte were sold at Christie's auction.

At the same time, a businessman loses millions of dollars in the resale of works of art. As Bloomberg reported on the results of his own investigation, the billionaire bought from the Swiss art dealer Iva Bouvier works of art worth $ 2 billion. In early 2015, Rybolovlev appealed to the police, saying that he overpaid for paintings about $ 1 billion due to the fact that the art dealer mislead him. Bouvier was charged with fraud and complicity in money laundering, but he was released on bail € 10 million.

In 2016, the publication Artnet placed Roman Abramovich and Daria Zhukov in first place in its list of top 100 collectors in the world. In addition to cultural projects, couples, including the Garage Museum of Modern Art and the New Holland Island, portal experts noted that Zhukova's collection includes hundreds of works of contemporary art, while Abramovich prefers the works of impressionists and modernists. For example, the pastels of Edgar Degas (collector bought one of them for $ 26.5 million), Francis Bacon's triptych ($ 86.3 million), and the picture of "Sleeping Social Worker" by Lucien Freud, which he acquired for $ 33.6 million. The works of Bacon and Freud were bought by a businessman in 2008. Later, Forbes called these two paintings, donated by Zhukova, among the most expensive gifts in history. In August 2017, the couple announced a divorce.

The richest man in Russia, Leonid Mikhelson, whose fortune is estimated at $ 18.4 billion, is also constantly included in the lists of the world's leading collectors. In 2009, he founded the contemporary art fund VAC, named it in honor of his daughter Victoria, and in January 2015 the structure of the businessman bought the building of the historic power plant HPP-2 at Krasny Oz., Where a center for contemporary art will appear. The project was designed by the architect Renzo Piano - the author of the building of the Pompidou Center in Paris. In the personal collection of Michelson, the works of such modern authors as Pavel Althamer, Andreas Gursky, Zigmar Polke and Thomas Strut are kept.

The largest collection of Russian art of the late XIX - early XX century, owned by the board of directors of Alfa Bank Peter Aven. In 2015, the exhibition, which relied heavily on this collection, was held in New York. In the exhibition the canvases of Russian modernists Vasily Kandinsky, Natalia Goncharova, Mikhail Larionov, Alexei von Jawlensky and their German colleagues Erich Haeckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Gabriel Munter were presented.

In the summer of 2017 Aven entered into a controversy with the artist Vladimir Dubosarsky. The businessman said that modern Russian art is secondary, and also noted that collectors should not buy the works of contemporary artists, guided only by moral and humanitarian ideas. The billionaire also told that he is considering the option to open a private museum in Riga, where his grandfather was from. The cost of Aven's collection is estimated at $ 500 million.

Another major collector among Russian businessmen is the President of the European Jewish Congress Vyacheslav Kantor, whose fortune is estimated at $ 3.1 billion. He collects works of artists of Russian and Jewish origin, starting from the Marches Chagall and Chaim Soutine belonging to the Paris School and to the conceptualists Ilya Kabakov and Eric Bulatov. In 2001, Vyacheslav Kantor created in Moscow the Museum of Avant-Garde Art.

Billionaire Viktor Vekselberg in 2004 acquired in New York a unique collection of jewelry by Carl Faberge, which included nine imperial Easter eggs. "Kommersant" estimated the value of the transaction at $ 100 million. At the same time, the businessman promised to return the collection to Russia. "I want these unique works of the jeweler genius Carl Faberge to see as many Russians as possible. That is why the Cultural and Historical Foundation "The Connection of Times" created by me organizes the collection's exposition not only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but also in other Russian cities - Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Tyumen, "Vekselberg later told. In 2013, the Faberge Museum opened in the Shuvalov Palace of St. Petersburg, the founder of which was Vekselberg, Dmitry Medvedev took part in the ceremony.

Another private museum in 2016 was opened by billionaire Boris Mintz, owner of the O1 Properties group. Mints has been collecting works of Russian impressionism for many years, and this museum is dedicated to the museum that opened on Leningradsky Prospekt in Moscow. "I hope that according to our business plan the museum will earn. But the fact that he will not pay off, that's for sure. Plus, the museum's collection will be constantly updated and replenished, and this is also an expense, "Mintz said. According to the businessman, the creation of the museum cost $ 20 million, and he spent $ 25-27 million to buy paintings.

In 2007, the founder of USM Holdings, Alisher Usmanov, the day before the auction Sotheby's acquired a collection of art objects that belonged to Mstislav Rostropovich and his wife Galina Vishnevskaya. According to the businessman, he was guided by the desire to preserve the integrity of the collection and return it to Russia. The final cost of the collection was not called, however, according to Sotheby's, it far exceeded the starting price, which experts estimated at $ 26-40 million.

In 2008, Vladimir Putin took part in the opening of the exhibition of items from the collection in the Konstantinovsky Palace. "I want to address the words of gratitude to everyone who helped the collections to return to their homeland, preserved it as an art monument, continuing the best traditions of patronage and philanthropy, especially Alisher Usmanov," Putin said at the time.

In 2007, Usmanov also bought out commercial rights to a collection of Soviet cartoons from the California company Film by Jove and handed it over to the Russian state television channel Bibigon.