Football
Chris Wright, Toe Poke writer 6y

Monaco owner Dmitry Rybolovlev's massive (painting) sale

A new world record was set on Thursday when a painting of Jesus Christ by Leonardo Da Vinci was sold at auction for an eye-watering $450 million (£304m) at Christie's in New York.

It also represented yet another extremely lucrative sale for Monaco owner Dmitry Rybolovlev, who added to his long list of summer windfalls -- Kylian Mbappe, Tiemoue Bakayoko, Benjamin Mendy, Bernando Silva -- by flogging Da Vinci to the highest bidder.

Selling the players landed Rybolovlev approximately $412m in recouped fees, with Da Vinci pushing that total well beyond the $860m mark.

However, while the Ligue 1 side might be able to re-stock their squad with young, hungry stars of the future, we suspect it may be altogether harder to replace a 500-year old painting originally commissioned by King Louis XII of France.

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