The Name of the Rose

How could I conscionably resist commenting on the auction at Christie's in New York of a painting only recently attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (that underachieving genius of all time) in excess of $450M? Just the mention of that much money drew gasps from onlookers of the auction. That so much could be spent for a 26-inch tall painting whose authorship has been the subject of speculation and whose condition has been altered by painstaking restoration involving the removal of what someone other than Da Vinci painted over his original arouses - at best - a mixture of emotions.

I was once again bemused, especially since in the 1950s the painting was only considered worth about one-ten millionth its current value, at £45. It is the last Da Vinci painting, of which there are less than twenty, in private hands. Will it be displayed proudly by the owner somewhere in his private residence for visitors to marvel at? Will it be confined to a vault because it is simply too valuable to be put on display? Or will it be hung in the owner's bathroom directly opposite his toilet so that he can contemplate its glories in absolute solitude?

I have written about Leonardo at greater length before (see The Sun Stood Still), and I continue to be surprised at the sheer size of his reputation, given that, for a Renaissance artist (a contemporary of Michelangelo and Raphael), he was something of a failure. The publication of a sub-literate suspense novel embroiling Da Vinci in a secret society of the blood relations of Jesus Christ appears to be responsible for the current vogue for everything to do with Leonardo. Todd Levin, an art advisor, is reported to have told The New York Times about the painting's sale that “This was a thumping epic triumph of branding and desire over connoisseurship and reality.”

Clearly, the word of a consortium of art historians who acquired the painting in 2005 for $10,000 and who spent eight years removing what had been painted over the original figure by an unknown artist, was impressive enough for a Russian oligarch to buy it in 2013 for $127.5M, a trasaction still in dspute. All of this begs the question - among others - how could a painting be considered worth just $60 in the 1950s, $10,000 in 2005 be suddenly worth $450M? It clearly has nothing to do with the image itself, with its intrinsic qualities as an artwork. Watching people marvel at the painting's beauties - now that its bona fides have been established - is certainly amusing.

In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Juliet wishes that Romeo had a different name, since "Montague" was anathema to her family of Capulets. Her speech has become one of the most famous in English:

O, be some other name!
What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other word would smell as sweet;

What Shakespeare knew is that a rose by any other name is no longer a rose, regardless of its smell. A painting by someone other than Leonardo da Vinci, evidently, can be mistaken for the real thing and sell for a record sum in a preposterous world like ours.