Salvator Mundi destined for Riyadh giga-park

• Leonardo painting in tourist plans
• Salman Park heritage centre suggested
• Park billed as largest in world

The $450 million Leonardo Da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi is destined for a museum of art inside the King Salman Park giga-project in Riyadh in time for hosting the World Expo in 2030, two separate sources have said.  

The artwork is a big part of Saudi Arabia’s plans to rebrand itself globally as a socially liberal country open to foreign tourists and investors. 

Despite news reports Saudi Arabia has still not confirmed that it is in possession of the famous painting. But consultants to the government say it will play a key role in bringing tourists to visit some of the $1.25 trillion of giga-projects under construction, including King Salman Park. 

An official from the ministry of culture, whose museum commission oversees ongoing projects, said the massive green space was the current preferred display site. 

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“It will be at the King Salman Park heritage centre, which they’ve already started building,” the person said, referring to a site to be known as the Royal Arts Complex, which will include a Museum of World Cultures. Video footage showed in June that the building is near completion. 

The Public Investment Fund park, valued at $10.4 billion, has been billed as the “largest urban park in the world”, with green space more than five times the size of New York’s Central Park, and bigger than Berlin’s Tiergarten and Dublin’s Phoenix Park. 

Salman Park has been less prominent in Saudi media than giga-projects such as Neom, Diriyah and Qiddiya, but as it bears King Salman’s name, it is viewed as a priority project. 

It is also central to plans to transform the capital into a liveable green city, rather than the traffic-snarled construction site it is now. 

Nojood Al Aqeel/Unsplash

King Salman Park

A Western diplomat based in the Gulf said independently that King Salman Park was now the preferred location. 

International art experts had been expecting Diriyah, the historical district of Riyadh where the Saudi state first arose in the 18th century, as the likely display site.  

“Given that Diriyah is so close to Riyadh and has become the cultural hub, I suspect it could be showcased there temporarily by the time the new museum is being built at King Salman Park in Riyadh,” said Adeline Pilon, co-founder of the Paris-based Elyx Foundation. 

The culture ministry official said a last-minute change to Diriyah was not out of the question.

The arts have taken off in Saudi Arabia since the Vision 2030 project of social and economic reforms was launched in 2016, with huge government funding. 

A Salman Park official, Saleh al-Arifi, described the new museum at a real estate exhibition in Riyadh last week.  

“It will be opened in phases, there isn’t a big launch. First will be the visitor pavilion,” al-Arifi said, referring to a central building with views over the park, which will be home to one million trees and be surrounded by a 7km circular walkway called The Loop. 

Al-Arifi said the museum could bring together Saudi, regional and global artwork, resembling elements of Doha’s Mathaf museum of contemporary Arab art. 

Asked if it would display the Salvator Mundi, he smiled and said: “We’re not sure about that.”