David Henty | Salvator Mundi (after Leonardo da Vinci)

David Henty (b. 1958) — Salvator Mundi (after Leonardo da Vinci)

David Henty spent a short prison sentence in the mid-1990s for forging passports; it was there, by his own account, that a fascination with the working methods of other artists turned into a craft. Over the twenty-five years since, he has rebuilt that skill into a fully legitimate practice, openly recreating the techniques and palettes of Old Masters and modern artists alike, each piece researched and produced as a declared homage rather than passed off as an original.

This work reproduces Salvator Mundi, the depiction of Christ as “Saviour of the World” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and sold at auction in 2017 for $450.3 million, making it the most expensive painting ever sold. Henty’s version, set within an ornately gilt-decorated frame, recreates the original’s soft sfumato modelling and luminous orb in painstaking detail. It is offered, and should be understood, as a David Henty work in homage to Leonardo — not as the original painting or a claim to it.

Available through Creed Gallery, Ascot, for collectors across Berkshire, Surrey, and London.

Oil on panel, by David Henty, in homage to Leonardo da Vinci
Unframed - 43.5 x 53 Framed - 61 x 80.5
Not an original work by Leonardo da Vinci