WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.185 It is being lauded as the exhibition of the century. 2 00:00:03.600 --> 00:00:10.999 London's National Gallery is making history this week as it opens the most comprehensive display of Leonardo da Vinci works ever seen. 3 00:00:11.277 --> 00:00:15.737 Each night this week, we'll be bringing you special reports on this major coup for the art world. 4 00:00:16.217 --> 00:00:20.239 Tonight, Nick Glass begins our coverage with a rare look at the centerpiece of the show, 5 00:00:20.693 --> 00:00:23.751 a long-lost da Vinci known as a "Salvator Mundi." 6 00:00:47.936 --> 00:00:51.245 Is this the most thrilling art discovery of our time? 7 00:00:52.040 --> 00:01:01.617 A Leonardo painting of Jesus Christ, the first discovered Leonardo to be accepted by scholars in over a century. 8 00:01:02.091 --> 00:01:09.263 This is the art historical equivalent of a gold medal, and like many gold medalists, they don't repeat their achievements, 9 00:01:09.355 --> 00:01:12.039 and I don't... I'm not expecting to, either. 10 00:01:14.259 --> 00:01:23.375 Five hundred years ago, when Leonardo painted his Christ, Manhattan was little more than forest and wetland. Of course, it's changed a little since then. 11 00:01:26.628 --> 00:01:32.537 And it's where, two months ago at a secret location, we were privileged to be among the first to see the painting. 12 00:01:35.094 --> 00:01:38.861 We were also extremely lucky to see the painting before it was covered by glass. 13 00:01:41.187 --> 00:01:44.820 Jesus Christ looks directly back at us and beyond us. 14 00:01:46.032 --> 00:01:50.688 Like the few others who'd seen him, we felt he had a spiritual presence. 15 00:01:54.333 --> 00:02:00.740 And he'd been transformed. This is how he looked in a black-and-white photograph from the early 1900s. 16 00:02:01.570 --> 00:02:09.408 In his research, Robert Simon, who's well-connected in the art world, discovered that the image had been very popular during and after Leonardo. 17 00:02:09.768 --> 00:02:15.319 He tracked down some 20 versions of varying quality, evidently copies of a masterwork. 18 00:02:16.786 --> 00:02:25.269 But what was intriguing about this painting was that the artist had done something copyists don't do. He changed his mind about the detail. 19 00:02:26.752 --> 00:02:30.640 The word in Italian is pentimento, a change of heart. 20 00:02:34.340 --> 00:02:37.968 There was a kind of a crucial moment, and that was when a pentimento was discovered. 21 00:02:38.753 --> 00:02:45.624 And it really had to do with, at this spot here, this thumb. The artist had originally positioned the thumb at a different angle. 22 00:02:46.434 --> 00:02:48.827 The art dealer wrestled with his thoughts. 23 00:02:49.598 --> 00:02:57.428 In this kind of internal dialectic, an argument with oneself, really understanding the reason for it, is that Leonardo painted it. 24 00:02:57.889 --> 00:03:00.890 And it was a very frightening moment, actually. 25 00:03:00.941 --> 00:03:08.089 The presence of the pentimento was for me, really the very convincing bit of physical evidence that was indeed the autograph painting. 26 00:03:08.532 --> 00:03:11.421 This was the moment when hopes increased dramatically. 27 00:03:12.235 --> 00:03:19.598 In 2008, the painting was taken to the National Gallery in London, and a group of Leonardo specialists gave their blessing. 28 00:03:20.259 --> 00:03:22.637 You have academic scholars from Italy, from Oxford... 29 00:03:22.676 --> 00:03:22.914 Yes. 30 00:03:23.430 --> 00:03:29.147 ... standing in front of what we now know to be a discovered Leonardo. What was said? How did they react? 31 00:03:30.192 --> 00:03:40.883 Well, they... seriously, if they had the kind of eureka moment, they... I think each kept it to himself. 32 00:03:41.501 --> 00:03:49.355 It had the... , you know, perhaps the tenor of a group of specialist surgeons around a patient. 33 00:03:49.634 --> 00:03:54.462 So, I don't think... and perhaps with the patient in the middle of the room, one didn't want to say too much.