It is the highest auction price for any work of art after been cleaned and restored. Salvator Mundi, believed to have been painted sometime after 1505, is the only work thought to be in private hands.

Bidding began at $100m and the final bid for the work was $400m, with fees bringing the full price up to $450.3m. The unidentified buyer was involved in a bidding contest, via telephone, that lasted nearly 20 minutes.

It apparently once belonged to King Charles I of England in the 1600s and was "rediscovered" in 2005.

Before the auction, it was owned by Russian billionaire collector Dmitry E Rybolovlev, who is reported to have bought it in a private sale in May 2013 for $127.5m (£98m).

The painting has had major cosmetic surgery - its walnut panel base has been described as "worm-tunnelled" and at some point, it seems to have been split in half - and efforts to restore it resulted in abrasions.

But Christie's has insisted the painting is authentic and billed it as "the greatest artistic rediscovery of the 20th Century".