A Young Michelangelo Is Credited For This Nude Drawing Set To Fetch Over $30M

Believed to have been illustrated early on in his career, A Nude Young Man (After Masaccio) Surrounded By Two Figures, a previously unknown drawing by Michelangelo, is set to head to auction next month during Christie’s Paris sale.

The auction house, which said the work currently belongs to a private collector, estimates the piece could bring in €30 million (US$33 million) when it goes under the hammer.

Interestingly, the drawing was first spotted as possibly belonging to the famed artist in 2019 by Furio Rinaldi, a specialist in Christie’s department of Old Master Drawings. It was later confirmed to be an original work by Paul Joannides, Emeritus Professor of Art History at Cambridge University, and the author of the complete catalogs of drawings by Michelangelo. 

It’s said the illustration was first sold in 1907 at the Hôtel Dropout in Paris as part of a collection of works from the school of Michelangelo, and had escaped detection by scholars until just three years ago. 

Making the drawing even more special, experts think the piece could be the earliest-surviving nude study by the 15th-century artist, with the central figure being a reproduction of the man seen in the Baptism of the Neophytes, a well-known fresco at the Santa Maria del Carmine Church in Florence, which was designed by Italian Renaissance artist Masaccio. 

Taking two distinct shades of brown ink, Michelangelo created a robust figure on paper, later adding two more figures behind the shivering main man, putting his own spin on the Masaccio composition on the fresco. 

“Not since the discovery in 2001 of a drawing by Michelangelo at Castle Howard, now at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, has a previously unknown drawing of greater beauty and importance by one of the major figures in art history re-emerged at auction,” said Stijn Alsteens, International Head of Department of Old Master Drawings.

“The drawing is one of the best of fewer than ten works on paper by Michelangelo still in private hands, and will become a touchstone for every discussion of the early part of the artist’s long career.” 

[via Artnet News and Christie’s, cover image via Christie’s]