Leonardo's painting sells for $450.3 million

The famous painting of Christ - "Salvator Mundi", made by Leonardo Da Vinci - was sold for a record figure of 450.3 million dollars, at the auction organized by "Christie's" in New York.

The recently discovered painting fetched four times its pre-sale estimate. The last record for the most expensive painting was for Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes D'Alger, which sold for $179.4 million.

"Salvator Mundi" (Savior of the World) was bought by an unidentified person bidding over the phone - after a race of almost 20 minutes.

"It's a painting beyond anything I've ever handled," said Jussi Pylkkänen, of Christie's auction house.

First listed in the private collection of King Charles I, the painting was sold at auction in 1763, before disappearing - until 1900. The painting was sold again in 1958, as the work of Leonardo's pupils Giovanni and Antonio Boltraffio . In 2011, the truth of the authorship is revealed. /Telegraph/