Appraising Leonardo

Abstract

Chapter 10 discusses the appraisal of paintings relating to Leonardo and his school in seventeenth-century England and the state of understanding and connoisseurship of the artist at that time. The chapter focuses on the paintings relating to Leonardo documented in the Caroline collection, tracking their description in inventories and lists between 1639 and c. 1666. This provides context for the descriptions of the two paintings of Christ as Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo in the seventeenth-century British Royal Collection. The chapter identifies, where possible, the specific locations of these paintings within the complex of Stuart royal palaces, with particular reference to the manor of Greenwich. Since Greenwich was in the jointure of Queen Henrietta Maria, we examine whether there is any evidence to support the theory that the painting was brought from France on the occasion of her marriage in 1625. It concludes with an analysis of an important sighting of a Salvator Mundi type, attributed to Leonardo, recorded in the collection of the Duke of Hamilton, c. 1638. This introduces the possibility of a third Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo at the Stuart courts.