The former owners of a villa near
Florence where Michelangelo lived as a young man are thinking of
putting up for auction a large-scale drawing attributed to the
Sistine Chapel master.
But not all critics agree on the paternity of the sketch which
long adorned the wall of a former kitchen, and Friday's New York
Times shone a spotlight on the affair.
The villa in the hills of Settignano was sold by the Sernesi
family at the end of last year without the drawing, a charcoal
on plaster mural depicting a satyr or triton which was removed
from the wall to be restored in 1979.
Over the years the work has travelled the world, loaned to shows
from Japan to Canada, and most recently to the Metropolitan in
New York for the 2017 exhibition Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman
and Designer, in whose catalogue curator Carmen C. Bambach,
confirming the attribuition, described it as "the only remaining
evidence of Michelangelo's abilities as a large-scale
draughtsman".
Rumours of the Florence auction have rekindled the attribution
debate which had remained hitherto limited to the small circle
of Michelangelo aficionados.
If Bambach, an authority in the field of Renaissance drawing,
confirmed its authenticity, other experts are not 100% sure.
For Cecile Hollberg, director of the Accademia gallery that
houses the David and who viewed the drawing for the Sernesis,
"it is very interesting and now it is certainly necessary to
carry out fresh investigations".
Works of masters of Michelangelo's calibre still in private
hands are extremely rare and prices are eye watering when they
come to market: two years ago a Michelangelo sketch was
auctioned at Christie's in New York for 23 million euro.
Italian prices are considerably lower because of laws against
exporting works of art, Milan and London gallery owner Carlo
Orsi explained to the New York Times: "Finding customers in
Italy at these prices is virtually impossible".
The Sernesi family has not put a price on the work which was
insured for $24 million when it flew to New York for the MET
show. "We think it is a work that desreves to be seen and
appreciated, Ilaria Sernesi, one of the owners, told the Times.
As well as the association with the villa, the attribution of
the drawing to Michelangelo is also based on the assessment of
Hungarian art historian Charles de Tolnay, who says the Sistine
master sketched it as a teenager.
Comparisons between the Sernesi drawing and a study by
Michelangelo in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford have prompted
other experts to date the work to the first 20 years of the
artist.
One of the attribution skeptics is Paul Joannides, emeritus art
historian at Cambridge, who highlights its "scant quality".
Also in the no camp is Francesco Caglioti, of the Normale
University in Pisa: "If it was by Michelangelo, he wasn't on
great form that day."
The artist, he added, "was a severe judge of his own work", and
in his old age destroyed several juvenile works.
"Perhaps he forgot about this one," Caglioto told the NYT.
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