New York Times, Tuesday, December 12, 2017

When I read about the sale of the painting a few weeks ago, I saw right away the nice crossing of the painting's name and artist. (Unfortunately, that's the way you think after you've been writing puzzles for a while!) I still wasn't sure I wanted to write an art-related puzzle because I didn't know how many solvers would be interested. But I found some interesting, fun facts about the painting and, even better, was able to get them to interlock with everything else. So the puzzle sort of tells a little story.

Obviously, the price paid for the painting was astounding (the buyer is anonymous) and it was fascinating to read about how it was marketed to get such a high price.

News flash: The buyer of "Salvator Mundi" is Prince Bader, a Saudi royal. (Pretty interesting that a Muslim would buy a portrait of Christ, who's not considered a savior in the Muslim world.) The buyer apparently is strapped for cash so after a $100 mil down payment, the rest will be paid over six months to the painting's previous owner, a Russian billionaire.

Huh! SALVATOR MUNDI, selling for $450.3 million last month, a new record. You know what makes me the most curious? The $0.3 million. Other bidders had no problem gathering $450 M, but that last $0.3 M was the deal breaker? There's gotta be a great story behind that!

Nice that the puzzle came out in a timely fashion. I did a double-take on the clue — is it possible that the painting sold less than a month ago? Pretty cool to memorialize such a record-breaking event so quickly (considering that puzzle queue times between acceptance and printing usually are three months to well over a year!).

Fortuitous, that interlock of LEONARDO DA VINCI and SALVATOR MUNDI. Every once in a while, the crossword gods shine down on you.

Such big interlock does constrain the puzzle mightily though, forcing further interlock if you want to incorporate other long themers. David did great with OLD MASTER crossing through SALVATOR MUNDI — perfectly apt for LEONARDO.

But RESTORING ("restoration" sounds better, yeah?) felt like an afterthought; something that would more fit the grid interlock than fit "interesting to a solver." Maybe if the clue had told a nutsy story behind the RESTORING of the painting …

Because of that, the puzzle theme felt thin, more akin to a front-page blurb than a meaty story. Would have been great to get another interesting piece of trivia about the painting itself.

Oh right, there was CHRISTIE, which felt like it ought to be CHRISTIES, and CHARLES I, one of the many people who owned the painting at one time. These were too peripheral to the painting to make me remember that they were themers. Again, casualties of the central interlock.

I would have preferred unlinking LEONARDO DA VINCI and SALVATOR MUNDI so that more interesting themers could be used.

Pretty good grid execution, what with some nice bonuses in X RATED / O HENRY (Xs and Os!), and just a bit of DTS, APR, the odd IN A NET. Not easy to do with so much interlock. And I enjoyed learning about that painting — embarrassed not to have heard of it before!