達芬奇畫作《救世主》的神祕買家引發猜測

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.

最後一件私人收藏的萊昂納多?達芬奇(Leonardo da Vinci)畫作以驚人價格成交，引發了外界對買家身份的狂熱探尋，但到目前爲止新主人的身份仍像這位藝術家另一幅作品中的微笑一樣神祕。

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)週三在紐約拍賣了《救世主》(Salvator Mundi)，但一直沒有透露是誰花了4.5億美元買下這件500年前的作品，該價格創下了世界拍賣紀錄。

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.

由於潛在買家羣體僅限於億萬富翁和極少數機構，藝術界的一些人正試圖將目標縮小到一個地區或一個國家。

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.

前佳士得印象派和現代藝術負責人、藝術顧問托馬斯?塞杜(Thomas Seydoux)懷疑買家來自亞洲，理由是競價一路向上“狂飆猛漲”，一下從3.7億美元跳到4億美元。他認爲買家“在該領域還是新手，但非常積極”，或許是中國的財富新貴。塞杜說：“他們是該市場的一股巨大力量，而且他們也準備要大筆投入。”

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”.

近來亞洲已產生了一些藝術品超級買家。今年5月日本企業家前澤友作(Yusaku Maezawa)斥資1.1億美元購買了讓?米切爾?巴斯奎特(Jean-Michel Basquiat)的一幅畫作。2015年11月，中國房地產和製藥億萬富豪劉益謙以1.7億美元買下莫迪利亞尼(Modigliani)的一幅裸女圖，但他否認購買了《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.

還有人猜測買家是海灣地區的一名王室成員或億萬富翁，或許來自對藝術品收藏毫不吝嗇的卡塔爾，又或者來自剛開設了盧浮宮(Louvre)博物館分館的阿布扎比。阿布扎比分館有一幅從巴黎盧浮宮借展的達芬奇畫作《費隆妮葉夫人》(La belle ferronnière)，但本身沒有這位大師的畫作。

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

塞杜指出卡塔爾人此前主要投資十九世紀末和二十世紀的藝術品，據報道其中包括一幅以2.5億美元成交的塞尚(Cézanne)畫作。

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.

藝術市場記者喬治娜?亞當(Georgina Adam)表示推斷買家的思路之一是“1%-4%規則”，即富人不應對任何“激情投資”投入其淨資產4%以上。按照這一邏輯，只有淨資產超過110億美元的富豪纔是可能的買家。

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”.

能買得起《救世主》的機構也非常少，其中一家便是位於加利福尼亞州的蓋蒂博物館(Getty Museum)，該博物館擁有65億美元的捐贈基金。今年7月該博物館爲早期繪畫大師作品支出了估計逾1億美元。但一位發言人表示蓋蒂博物館不是《救世主》的買家。

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.

這幅畫經歷頗爲坎坷。1958年它在倫敦蘇富比(Sotheby’s)以45英鎊被售出，當時它被認爲是複製品，但到了2011年當它在倫敦國家美術館(National Gallery)展出時已被承認完全由達芬奇繪製。後來據報道，藝術顧問伊夫?布維耶(Yves Bouvier)以7500萬美元至8000萬美元的價格買下了這幅畫，隨後他以1.275億美元賣給了俄羅斯收藏家德米特里?雷波諾列夫(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.”

雷波諾列夫正就這幅畫作以及從布維耶處購買的其他作品對後者進行起訴，理由是自己被敲了竹槓。雷波諾列夫說：“感謝佳士得的專業精神和專業知識，達芬奇《救世主》破紀錄的拍賣幫助收回了這幅藏品的一些價值。”

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.

不含佣金的最終拍出價爲4億美元，這意味着佳士得在這筆交易上將賺取5000萬美元。不過這筆錢將因拍賣前的各種營銷費用而縮水，包括將這幅畫作從倫敦運送到香港、舊金山和紐約的費用。佳士得表示逾3萬人觀看了該作品。

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.

佳士得此前已獲得第三方對該畫以1億美元售出的擔保，以防拍賣低於這一售價。擔保的一般運作方式是，向擔保人支付拍賣價格高出擔保金額的一個百分比作爲獎勵，因此這超出的3億美元的任何較大百分比都將侵蝕佳士得的利潤。