Mysteries of Leonardo da Vinci's Art

In 2017, this painting attributed to Leonardo da

Vinci was sold for $450 million.

At Christie's, $400 million is the bid, and the piece

is

sold.

Because of this, the image traveled around the world.

But what very few people know is that this painting holds a mystery that

experts have been trying to solve for more than 500 years.

If we look at the lower right corner of this painting, Christ holds in

his hands what appears to be a crystal sphere that allows us to see

through it. Additionally, inside this sphere, we can see

three small dots that, for some reason, Leonardo

included for us to see. What meaning could this

mysterious object that Christ holds in his hands have?

And why, after 500 years, have experts been unable to

solve its meaning?

According to the numerous studies that have been carried out on this

painting, it

is said that Leonardo da Vinci painted it around the year

1500. Its original name is Salvator Mundi,

which in English translates to Savior of the World, and it is probably

the most controversial painting in the entire history of modern

art. In it, we see Christ facing forward, dressed in

blue Renaissance robes. His right hand is raised in a sign of

blessing, while his left holds that mysterious, transparent

crystal sphere, which at first we might think represents

the

celestial sphere of the heavens. His face is framed by auburn

curls, and his expression is serene and impenetrable.

But beyond what we see in the work, its history is as

extraordinary as the painting itself.

For centuries, it was lost. It passed through the hands of King

Charles I

of England in the 17th century, and then disappeared from the

records completely. It resurfaced in 2005,

when it was purchased at a small auction in the United States for just

over $1,000, cataloged as a simple copy by a

follower of Leonardo. However, after a deep

restoration and years of analysis, in 2011, the

National Gallery in London included it in its major Leonardo

exhibition as an authentic work by the master.

And finally, in 2017, it was sold at a

Christie's auction in New York for $450 million,

thus becoming the most expensive painting ever sold in

history. But now, let us return to the mystery

surrounding this painting. You may not have noticed it until now,

but there is an error in the sphere Christ is holding.

The first to point out this problem publicly was Walter Isaacson,

the famous biographer of Leonardo, in 2017.

According to his observations, Leonardo did not paint the distortion

that would occur when looking through a solid crystal

sphere.

Let us keep in mind that if the sphere were solid crystal, the palm

of Christ's hand touching it would look exactly as it is painted.

But floating inside the sphere, there should be a reduced

and inverted image of

his robes and his arm, something more or less like this.

So there is something quite puzzling here.

If we look closely, we can see that Leonardo painted the rest of the

sphere with beautiful scientific precision.

At a certain point, we can even see three small bright dots

inside this

sphere. These dots are inclusions, and they would be the small

cavities that appear in natural rock crystal.

There is even evidence that at that exact time, Leonardo had examined

rock crystals as a favor for Isabella d'Este, one of the most

powerful women in Italy. So Leonardo knew the material

perfectly and painted its microscopic imperfections with

total accuracy. However, by painting the

sphere without distorting anything, a big question arises.

How is it possible that the greatest scholar of optics of his

time made

such a basic mistake? The short answer to this question is that

it probably was not a mistake, and the theories

that attempt to explain it

are fascinating. But before telling you about these

theories, I would

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The first theory that could explain the alleged error

Leonardo made in this

painting comes from Isaacson himself.

According to him, Leonardo may have omitted the distortion

deliberately for a theological reason.

In a way, by bypassing the natural laws of optics,

Leonardo would be showing the miraculous nature of Christ and of the

sphere he holds. Under this reading, the ones who would be

mistaken would be us for interpreting the sphere as earthly

crystal, when in reality it should be interpreted

as heaven

itself in his hands. And in that sense, it would make sense

that heaven does not obey the laws of physics.

The second theory comes from Martin Kemp, emeritus professor at

Oxford, and one of the experts we have already

cited in other

Leonardo analyses. Curiously, Kemp states that it was

precisely the sphere that convinced him the work

was by Leonardo.

According to him, the inclusions are painted exactly as they appear

in real rock crystal. And regarding the lack of distortion,

his explanation is that Renaissance painting

is not a photograph.

Artists of the time considered it pictorial bad taste to take

optics to its final consequences.

As he himself said, "It would not make sense to imagine a

baptism of

Christ in which Jesus's legs appeared refracted by the water of the

Jordan River. That would not make sense either."

But the third

theory is perhaps the most surprising of all.

In 2019, a team of scientists from the University

of

California decided to solve the mystery with modern technology,

creating a virtual three-dimensional model of the painting and

simulating how light would pass through different types of spheres.

And in this study, something quite unexpected was found.

If the sphere were not solid, but hollow, like a blown glass bubble

with a thickness of barely one millimeter, the image it would produce

matches exactly what Leonardo painted in this work.

This way, there would be no inversion, no magnification, only

minimal distortion. And there is one detail that makes this theory

even more convincing. Of the five folds of the robe that pass

behind the sphere, four appear perfectly sharp, but one,

right at the edge, appears deliberately blurred, exactly

where a real hollow sphere would produce that distortion.

So if we choose to believe this theory is the correct one,

Leonardo would not have made any mistake here.

Quite the opposite. He would have painted the sphere with such

precision

that it would have taken us 500 years to realize he was right all

along. To this day, the sphere in this painting continues to

generate debates among physicists, art historians, and

scientists. Every new technology applied to it reveals

another

layer of knowledge hidden within it.

And perhaps that is the answer to the mystery, that there is no error

in this painting, but rather that every decision, from the microscopic

inclusions to the blurred fold, was made by someone who knew

exactly what he was doing.

I would love for you to leave me in the comments which of the theories