Michelangelo did a much smaller
oil-on-canvas version of his epic Sistine Chapel wall fresco,
the Last Judgement, Renaissance art expert Amel Olivares said
Tuesday ahead of the presentation of eight years of research on
a painting kept in Geneva.
"It's a small Last Judgement with Christ the Judge and the other
figures of the celebrated fresco that one can admire in the
Sistine Chapel by Michelangelo Buonarroti in oil on canvas, the
only example of the master using this technique," said Olivares,
who did the research with another art historian, Monsignor José
Manuel del Rio Carrasco.
Olivares believes that Michelangelo gave the Geneva Last
Judgement, trace of which were lost for over 100 years, to the
artist Alessandro Allori, who used it as a model for his work in
Florence's Basilica of the Santissima Annunziata.
He said the work, which is 96.52cm x 81,28 cm and is in
excellent condition, features several of the aspects of the
Sistine Chapel fresco, such as the "audacious" depiction of
Christ without a beard.
It has changed hands many times over the centuries and was
restored in 2015 by Antonio Casciani.
Olivares gave ANSA a sneak preview of his findings before
presenting them at the Foreign Press Association in Rome.
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