En Arabie saoudite, la lutte contre la corruption tout ça... Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Identified as Buyer of Record-Breaking da Vinci
▻https://www.wsj.com/articles/saudi-arabias-crown-prince-identified-as-buyer-of-record-breaking-da-vinci-1512
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman is the buyer of a painting by Leonardo da Vinci that sold for a record $450.3 million last month, according to U.S. government intelligence and a Saudi art-world figure familiar with the purchase, a disclosure that offers a rare glimpse inside a rivalry between two Persian Gulf nations to scoop up some of the world’s masterpieces.
Prince Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammed, a lesser-known figure and a distant relative of the crown prince, was the nominal winner of the auction, held at Christie’s in November, the Saudi art-world figure said, “but he is a proxy for MBS.”
“It is a fact that this deal was done via a proxy,” the person said.
The revelation that the crown prince is the purchaser of the sought-after portrait of Jesus Christ —the most expensive painting ever sold at auction—settles one of the biggest mysteries in the art world. And it comes at a fraught political moment for the 32-year-old Saudi leader, who is trying to portray himself as a reformer determined to root out corruption in the oil-rich kingdom.