Experts Can't Explain This 500-Year-Old Mystery

In 2017, this painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci was sold for 450 million dollars, becoming the most expensive painting ever sold in history. But what very few people know is that this work holds a mystery that experts have been trying to solve for centuries. The crystal sphere Christ holds in his hand breaks the laws of optics. And Leonardo, the greatest scholar of optics of his time, would have known it. Was it a deliberate mistake? A theological message? Or did Leonardo paint something so precise that it took us 500 years to understand it? ► Shop "Salvator Mundi" (c. 1500) at - https://www.inspiraggio.com/products/salvator-mundi-leonardo-da-vinci-1490 ► Shop Art Prints & Canvas at - https://www.inspiraggio.com/collections/shop-all ► Shop Fine Art Phone Cases at - https://www.inspiraggio.com/collections/iphone-cases → Join our FREE newsletter: https://www.inspiraggio.com/pages/newsletter → Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiraggio → Contact: [email protected] 0:00 Introduction 0:54 Salvator Mundi 2:34 Mystery 4:40 Theories SCIENTIFIC STUDIES Liang, Goodrich & Zhao (UC Irvine, 2019) — "On the Optical Accuracy of the Salvator Mundi" https://arxiv.org/pdf/1912.03416 npj Heritage Science (Nature, 2026) — "A crystallographic approach to the orb of the New York Salvator Mundi" https://www.nature.com/articles/s40494-026-02558-9 SOURCES Artnet News — "Why Are Experts Perplexed by Leonardo da Vinci's 'Salvator Mundi'? (Hint: It's That Weird Orb)" https://news.artnet.com/art-world/leonardo-da-vinci-salvotore-mundi-orb-1123262 Artnet News — "Computer Scientists Say They've Solved the Mystery of the Orb" https://news.artnet.com/art-world/scientists-solve-mystery-salvator-mundi-orb-1745037 MIT Technology Review — "A virtual version of da Vinci's mystery glass orb has helped explain its weirdness" https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/02/102309/a-virtual-version-of-da-vincis-mystery-glass-orb-has-helped-explain-its-weirdness/ Live Science — "Mystery of Orb in a Record-Breaking Leonardo Da Vinci Painting Deepens" https://www.livescience.com/da-vinci-light-orb-mystery.html Walter Isaacson — "Leonardo da Vinci" (Simon & Schuster, 2017) Martin Kemp — "Leonardo's Salvator Mundi and the Collecting of Leonardo in the Stuart Courts" (Oxford University Press, 2020) #arthistory #art Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for “fair use” for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.