A small Michelangelo study sold for $27.2 million. It's a record
A small Michelangelo study was sold at a Christie's auction in New York for $27.2 million, setting a new record for the artist's works ever sold at auction. The drawing is small—the size of a palm—and depicts only a foot: the heel is slightly raised above the ground, with a shadow visible beneath it, CNN reports .
Photo: Christie’s
The discovery story began when the owner sent a photo of the study for an online appraisal, without even suspecting its true value. Christie's specialists confirmed that Michelangelo himself was the author.
The drawing, made with red chalk, served as a preparatory study for the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, on which the artist worked from 1508 to 1512. The pose of the foot and other features can be seen in the figure of the Lybian Sibyl in the central scenes from the Book of Genesis.
Christie's expert Giada Damen noted that the viewer, looking at the drawing, feels the powerful creative energy of the artist: one can see how he pressed the chalk into the paper, conveying the form of the foot.
The study offers a rare glimpse into Michelangelo's workshop, as most of his preparatory sketches have not survived: some were destroyed by the artist himself, some are simply lost or damaged. To this day, only two studies of the Lybian Sibyl figure are known—one in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and the other in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. In total, about 50 studies for the Sistine Chapel frescoes have survived, and none of them had previously been sold at auction.
The previously unknown drawing generated great interest among buyers, and the final price exceeded the initial estimate by almost 20 times, making it Michelangelo's most expensive work sold at open auction.
Detailed research confirmed the artist's authorship: Michelangelo's name is written in the lower left corner of the drawing, as it is on a similar study in the Metropolitan Museum.
The drawing had been in one family for over 200 years. In the 18th century, it was acquired by the Swiss diplomat Armand François Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin, then passed to his nephew, and subsequently to his descendants, who decided to sell the study at auction. Christie's has not disclosed the buyer's name.
Comments