Basically nobody seriously thinks it's an actual Da Vinci, but at this point it doesn't really matter. The narrative around the painting makes it a far more interesting work than any second rate actual Da Vinci could ever hope to be.

This was a good (long) article from a couple of months ago that goes through the story: https://www.vulture.com/2019/04/salvator-mundi-leonardo-da-v...

It's an interesting story, anyway.

You don't even have to be an expert to tell it isn't. Compared to Leonardo's paintings, Salvator Mundi is just boring.

Unless Leonardo just phoned it in. But I don't think there is a way to tell if a work was painted by a student or by Leonardo pretending to be a student anyway.

I never liked the explanation for the crystal orb. Oh, Leonardo knew about optics, but he painted the orb naïvely to show some sort of miracle.

Marketing, confirmation bias and price tag. Nobody would pay half a billion for a ruined painting with interesting hands... right ?