Didn’t get to see “Leonardo da Vinci’s St. Jerome” at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, commemorating the 500thanniversary of the protean artist’s death? Missed “Leonardo: Genius and Beauty,” exploring his cosmetic discoveries, at the Italian Trade Commission?
You’re just in time for Ben Lewis’ “The Last Leonardo: The Secret Lives of the World’s Most Expensive Painting” (Ballantine Books, $28, 363 pages). The work –“Salvador Mundi,” depicting Jesus in Renaissance dress – is the subject of a great deal of controversy, with some experts questioning whether it is a Leonardo. And where, oh, where it has disappeared to after being sold at Christie’s in 2017 for a record $450.3 million.
