$450M Leonardo ‘Salvator Mundi’ May Have Had ‘Double-Bind Guarantee’ (What’s That?)

“To minimise its risk, the auction house found a third party willing to ‘guarantee’ the work. In other words, the painting was pre-sold to an undisclosed buyer for an undisclosed sum.” That third party was, according to one rumor, the owners of another work on sale at the same auction, Warhol’s Sixty Last Suppers – which was, in turn, guaranteed by Dmitry Rybolovlev, seller of Salvator Mundi. Hence the “double-bind.”