By — Phil Hirschkorn Phil Hirschkorn Leave a comment 0comments Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/this-da-vinci-painting-could-fetch-more-than-100-million-at-auction Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript Audio It’s the first Leonardo da Vinci painting to be sold at a public auction and is expected to fetch over $100 million. The nearly 500-year-old portrait of Jesus Christ named “Salvator Mundi,” or “Savior of the World,” is up for auction next week at Christie's Auction House in New York City. NewsHour Weekend’s Phil Hirschkorn has more. Read the Full Transcript PHIL HIRSCHKORN: There are only 16 known paintings by Italian Renaissance Master Leonardo da Vinci, and this is one of them. Painted around the same time and in the same style as his "Mona Lisa," this portrait of Jesus Christ is called "Salvator Mundi," meaning "Savior of the World." ALAN WINTERMUTE: He's holding up some kind of orb or globe that represents the world, and he's blessing you, giving benediction. PHIL HIRSCHKORN: Alan Wintermute, Christie's senior specialist for "Old Master" paintings, says the work has typical da Vinci flourishes. ALAN WINTERMUTE: It has that smoky, shadowy lighting effects that create — in the "Mona Lisa," the famous Mona Lisa smile — they create an ambiguous very soft shadowy quality. He looks very directly at you, and you have the sense him looking sort of right into you. PHIL HIRSCHKORN: Independent consultants say this is a true da Vinci. They dated paint pigments and the walnut panel back to the 1500's and took x-rays to study the brush work. Also characteristic of da Vinci, lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone used for the blue color. In a stroke of clever marketing, Christie's is offering the da Vinci in the same auction as this massive reimagination of his famous "Last Supper," 60 silk-screened panels by Andy Warhol. ALAN WINTERMUTE: We felt that it did sort of indicate this universal genius of Leonardo, which affects really every generation and every century and every country, all the way up through the present. PHIL HIRSCHKORN: But nothing compares to the real thing. "Salvator Mundi" is the first da Vinci painting ever to be sold at public auction. Listen to this Segment Watch Watch the Full Episode PBS NewsHour from Nov 11, 2017 By — Phil Hirschkorn Phil Hirschkorn Phil Hirschkorn is a New York-based journalist with more than 20 years of experience producing video reports for national news networks and writing for their websites, with a special emphasis covering terrorism, politics, and the arts. Prior to PBS, Hirschkorn worked for CBS News, CNN, and Fox News. His articles have appeared in Salon, Huffington Post, Just Security, Atlantic.com, Politico, Rolling Stone, George, WhoWhatWhy, and other publications. Hirschkorn was an editor of and contributor to the 2002 book Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11, an oral history of 9/11 told by 130 radio and television journalists. He is graduate of Duke University. @PHirschkorn