LONDON — With his visionary designs for tanks, helicopters and airplanes, Leonardo da Vinci had a creative genius that was, as we know, far ahead of his time. But does that mean his work belongs in an auction of contemporary art?

Christie’s thinks so. The auction house is including the Leonardo painting “Salvator Mundi,” or “Savior of the World,” dating from around 1500, in its Nov. 15 sale of postwar and contemporary art in New York, along with works by Mark Rothko and Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Christie’s has finessed the jarring incongruity by marketing the old master alongside Andy Warhol’s Leonardo-inspired silk-screen “Sixty Last Suppers.” This 1986 painting, which is more than 30 feet wide, is estimated to sell for $50 million.

“The work of Leonardo is just as influential to the art that is being created today as it was in the 15th and 16th centuries,” Loïc Gouzer, co-chairman of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, said in a statement announcing that a Renaissance painting would be included in the auction.