Young Michelangelo Sketch Unearthed in Private Collection

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May 22, 2019

What an eminent art historian thinks is the earliest-known drawing by Michelangelo is now on display for the world to see.

The renowned Renaissance Man drew a sketch called The Seated Manwhen he was 12 or 13 and an apprentice in the studio of Domenico Ghirlandaio, himself a well-known artist and instructor. Many art historians regard Ghirlandaio as one of the leading fresco artists of 15th Century Florence. He is well-known for frescoes in Florence's Sassetti Chapel and the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella.

Michelangelo's Seated Man

Michelangelo drew the sketch about 1487, according to Italian Renaissance scholar Sir Timothy Clifford, who said that he identified the sketch as being done by Michelangelo in part because of the drawing style. Clifford emphasized the man's rounded chin and very hard line under the nose as being hallmarks of Michelangelo's style. Other leading Michelangelo scholars have agreed with Clifford's assessment. It was remarkable that the sketch exists, Clifford said, because Michelangelo was obsessed in destroying his early works.

Michelangelo

This is not the first Michelangelo identification that Clifford has made. He made a similar pronouncement about a chalk drawing of a candelabrum found in a box at New York's Cooper-Hewitt Museum in 2002. Clifford was once the director of the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh and, before that, the director of the Manchester City Art Galleries. He was known for evoking a sense of the time period in his exhibitions, displaying art works as people would have seen them years ago.

The artist used a pen and two shades of brown ink in drawing the sketch, which measures 220 by 153 mm (8.6 inches by 6 inches). The sketch depicts a man who is holding a scepter; the figure is seated and looks to be on a throne.

An unknown British collector bought the sketch at auction in France in 1989; at the time, no one knew who drew it. The collector has lent the sketch to the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, which is displaying it as part of a major Michelangelo exhibition until June 30.

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