# The Anonymous Owner > Bill Gates was named the day after he bought the Codex Leicester. The buyer of the Botticelli sold in January 2021 has not been named in five and a half years. Anonymity is granted at both ends of an object's life, and at the museum end it is permanent. > The Study - 2026-09-07 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/the-anonymous-owner/ ## Key points - Anonymity in this archive is granted at both ends of an object's life and almost never to the same person. Of 255 published records, 15 carry an anonymous buyer, consignor or private collector and 5 carry an anonymous donor or gift. No record carries both. - The interval between a sale and the naming of the buyer varies from one day to never. Bill Gates was named on 12 November 1994, the day after he bought the Codex Leicester. Kerry Stokes was named eight months after buying the Rothschild Prayerbook, on his own terms, on Australian television. - The buyer of Cimabue's Mocking of Christ at Senlis in October 2019 was never officially named and is still described in the trade press as the likely buyer. A French export ban gave the state thirty months to raise the money, and the panel went to the Louvre in November 2023 without the buyer's identity ever being confirmed. - The buyer of Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel, sold on 28 January 2021 for a hammer of 80 million dollars, has not been named in the five years and seven months since. The winning bid was taken on the telephone by a Sotheby's director on the Russia desk in London. - At the museum end the anonymity is not temporary, it is printed. The Metropolitan's Galle cabinet carries the credit line Anonymous Gift, 1982, and that line will be on the object's label for as long as the Museum holds it. - Donor anonymity can delete a provenance rather than shorten it. The Beinecke Library received the Martellus world map in 1962 as the gift of an anonymous donor, and the map's ownership before that date is not established. ## Anonymity is granted at both ends of an object's life, and to different people ## Four sales, and four completely different lengths of silence ## One day, because the buyer was already the story ## Eight months, and the buyer chose the moment himself ## Never officially, and the state took the object anyway ## Five years and seven months, and nothing at all ## At the museum end the anonymity is permanent, and it is printed on the label ## The gift that ended the provenance rather than continuing it ## What a record can still say when the name is missing ## Why this archive is free to read Anonymity is granted twice in an object's life, by two institutions, for two reasons, and only one of the two ever lapses. A buyer's silence is a position, and the press, a television appearance or a government with an export power can end it in a day, eight months or never. A donor's silence is a term of the gift, it is printed in the credit line, and it takes the object's earlier history with it. So write the anonymity down with its date and its venue instead of collapsing it to private collection, count the elapsed years rather than repeating the word, refuse to promote a likely buyer to a named one, and when a chain begins at an anonymous gift, say that it begins there and why. ## Questions **Who bought the Botticelli that sold for 92 million dollars in 2021?** Nobody has said. The picture sold at Sotheby's New York on 28 January 2021 for a hammer of 80 million dollars, 92,184,000 with fees, to an anonymous telephone bidder whose bid was taken by Lilija Sitnika, a Sotheby's director on the Russia desk in London. Five years and seven months later the buyer has not been named and no loan, exhibition or resale has been reported. **How quickly are buyers at major auctions usually identified?** There is no usual. Bill Gates was named on 12 November 1994, the day after he bought the Codex Leicester. Kerry Stokes was named eight months after buying the Rothschild Prayerbook, by himself, on Australian television. The buyer of the Senlis Cimabue has never been officially named at all. **Did France ever name the buyer of the Cimabue before the Louvre acquired it?** No. The buyer stayed officially anonymous throughout, and the trade press still refers to a likely buyer. France declared the panel a national treasure, blocked its export and gave the culture ministry thirty months to raise the funds; the Louvre announced the acquisition on 3 November 2023, matching the 24.1 million euro sale price. **What does the credit line Anonymous Gift mean on a museum label?** It means the donor made anonymity a condition of the gift, and unlike a buyer's anonymity it does not lapse. The Metropolitan Museum's Galle cabinet, accession 1982.246, carries Anonymous Gift, 1982, and that is the object's permanent public statement about its origin. **Does donor anonymity damage an object's provenance?** It can remove it. The Beinecke Library received the Martellus world map in 1962 as the gift of an anonymous donor and the map's ownership before that date is not established. A donor who wants no name attached has no reason to supply the documentation that would record where the object came from. ## Sources - [1] The Art Newspaper, Cimabue kitchen painting placed under export ban ends up at the Louvre, 6 November 2023. Read for the description of the Alana Collection as the likely buyer, the thirty months the culture ministry was given after the export ban, the Louvre's announcement on 3 November 2023, the matching of the 24.1 million euro sale price, and the funding from the Louvre Abu Dhabi brand licence, the Societe des Amis du Louvre and Harry and Linda Fath. - [2] Iconotheca, record for Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel. The archive's own record of the 28 January 2021 Sotheby's sale, the absence of a guarantee or irrevocable bid, the bidding from 78 to 80 million dollars, the two named Sotheby's specialists who took the final bids, the reconciliation of the published totals to 92,184,000 dollars, and the position as at the last check that the buyer remains anonymous and no loan, exhibition or further sale has been reported. - [3] Iconotheca, record for the Codex Leicester. The archive's own record of the Christie's New York sale of 11 November 1994, the reconstruction of the 30,802,500 dollar total from a hammer of 28 million under the tiered premium of the period, the telephone bid, the naming of Bill Gates on 12 November, and the loan history including the Uffizi Galleries from 30 October 2018 to 20 January 2019. - [4] Iconotheca, record for the Rothschild Prayerbook. The archive's own record of the Christie's New York sale of 29 January 2014, sale 2819 lot 157, the 13,605,000 dollar premium-inclusive total, the eight months of buyer anonymity, and the present location in the Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth, lent for public display in Australia. - [5] Metropolitan Museum of Art, collection record for the Ombelliferes (Cow Parsley) cabinet by Emile Galle, accession 1982.246. Read for the credit line Anonymous Gift, 1982, and for the Museum's statement that only one other example of the model is known. - [6] Yale News, Hidden secrets of Yale's 1491 world map revealed via multispectral imaging, 11 June 2015. Read for the sentence that Martellus' map arrived at Yale in 1962, the gift of an anonymous donor, for the map's date of about 1491, and for the National Endowment for the Humanities multispectral imaging project of August 2014. - [7] Artist Profile, The Rothschild Prayerbook. Read for the account of the 29 January 2014 Christie's New York sale and for the buyer remaining anonymous until September 2014, when Kerry Stokes was named on the Australian television programme Sunday Night.