The painting entered public awareness in 2005, when an art dealer identified it and brought it forward as a possible Leonardo^[1]. That moment is usually called a rediscovery, but the label understates how much remained, and remains, unresolved. Because so little documentary evidence survives to connect this specific panel to Leonardo across the centuries, its case for authenticity rests substantially on connoisseurship and technical analysis of the paint itself rather than on paper records, and that kind of argument is inherently more contestable than a documented chain of ownership^[1]. The debate over its attribution has stayed active rather than settling in either direction^[1].

The painting sold at a 2017 auction for close to half a billion dollars, bought by an anonymous buyer^[1]. A Louvre exhibition was planned for the following year but did not take place, which fed public speculation that the museum and the buyers had lost confidence in showing it publicly as a confirmed Leonardo^[1]. The fuller picture that later emerged was more specific: the Louvre had reached an agreement with buyers linked to the Saudi government, but that agreement broke down over the buyers' request to move the Mona Lisa so it could hang next to the Salvator Mundi during the exhibition^[1]. The Louvre separately produced a positive authentication report around the same time, intended to support the planned show, but a French television documentary has since disputed how conclusive that report really was^[1].