Possible Michelangelo Self-Portrait Found

Discovery Channel ^ | March 18, 2005 | Rossella Lorenzi

[nickcarraway]

March 18, 2005 — A unique bas-relief, which might be the first known self-portrait of Michelangelo, has emerged from a private collection, art historians announced in Florence this week.

The sculpture, a white marble round work attached to a flat piece of marble, with a diameter of 14 inches depicting a bearded man, was lent by a noble Tuscan family to the Museo Ideale in the Tuscan town of Vinci for a study on the relationship between Michelangelo and Leonardo.

"The work speaks for itself: it is a very high-quality sculpture which depicts Michelangelo. The skilled chiselling on the back makes us think it might be a self portrait," Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Leonardo da Vinci Museo Ideale, told Discovery News.

The bas-relief would have been sculpted around 1545, when 70-year-old Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already completed masterpieces such as the David, the Pietà in the Basilica of St. Peter, the Medici chapels in Florence and the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.

Although there are no examples of low reliefs from his later phase, Michelangelo did work on bas-reliefs when he was young. Indeed, he produced at least two relief sculptures, the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs, by the time he was 16 years old.

"I first saw the portrait about seven or eight years ago, when the owner brought it to my house in Tuscany. To my eyes then and to my eyes now it is surely a portrait of Michelangelo from the mid-sixteenth century, which itself is very rare, and it is a very fine object," James Beck, professor of art history at Columbia University and the author of "The Three Worlds of Michelangelo," told Discovery News.

"It is the only portrait of Michelangelo in marble and in relief that I am aware of from his lifetime."

According to Beck, the sculpture could also be the work of Niccolò Tribolo or Pierino da Vinci, the nephew of Leonardo who died at only 23.

"Pierino was an extraordinary sculptor. Enough to say that 19th century art historians often attributed his works to Michelangelo. Whoever the author, this marble portrait is very precious as it adds new knowledge to the image we have of Michelangelo," Vezzosi said.

The bas-relief is consistent with known portraits of the Renaissance master, such as paintings by Giuliano Bugiardini and Jacopino del Conte, kept at the Casa Buonarroti museum in Florence, and bronzes by Daniele da Volterra, on display at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

Michelangelo left no documented self portraits. Art historians have speculated that he painted his own image in the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew in the Last Judgement, and in the head of Nicodemus in the Florentine Pietà.

"This could be the first known self portrait of Michelangelo. But we are cautious, as more studies are needed," Vezzosi said.

The marble work will be the centrepiece of an exhibition on the image of Michelangelo in the coming months.

[nickcarraway]

The Sculpture of Michelangelo

[annyokie]

How cool! Thanks for posting this.

[Clara Lou]

Fascinating!! Thanks for posting.

[RadioAstronomer]

WOW! Thanks for the post.

[duck duck goose]

How cool thanks for the post.

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Thank you for posting this! How exciting. Michelangelo is one of my favorites. Everyone who enjoys art needs to spend some time in Florence. The people are great, the sites are great. The Art is amazing. What else can I say? :]

[lepton]

cool.

[GSlob]

Twenty to one it is not late Michelangelo: the surface treatment is all "overlicked" - compare it with his "Brutus" or late "Pietas".

[oldvike]

That looks just like him!

[Don Corleone]

Funny...it doesn't look like Charlton Heston! /humor

[RightWhale]

Twenty to one it is not late Michelangelo

It was common for the artist to have students who did the huggermugger work under his guidance.

[GSlob]

"Brutus" was finished - under guidance - by Tiberio Calcagni. Michelangelo himself finished only the more important face part in it. But the whole thing from an enlarged photo in the original article looks like the work of secondary hands like those to whom Michelangelo had to subcontract Julius' tomb (Montelupo, maybe, or that same Perino) - overlicked, and melodramatized, too (which to me is a particularly damning point). Volterra's head portrait is much more restrained; and if anything, such melodrama and overlicking would be more in tune with Bernini circle - and much later dating than 1540s.

[hoosiermama]

FYI! Road trip!

[RightWhale]

Details of art history elude me, I remember only a few salient points from art class. Thanks for detailed post.

[Joe 6-pack]

It looks like an original Alceo Dossena.

[solitas]

ping

[Harpo Speaks]

What do you mean by "overlicking?"

[GSlob]

Excessive polishing of the surface beyond what is necessary to achieve the desired visual/emotional effect, and at the limit detrimental to it. Early Michelangelo's works (like "Pieta" in St. Peter) were tending in that direction - but even there he knew where to stop and put things in balance. In his later sculptures, (and even in his earlier tondos) there is a pronounced movement to aesthetic use of much rougher surfaces, which look as if the piece was not finished [so called "infinito"]. One can see it in the face of "Day" - 1530s (San Lorenzo). In his later works (like the "Brutus" - about 1540, just the time of purported attribution) the whole surface, including the face, is not polished, but the frequent traces of chisel are put to use with advantage. The same applies to most of his later sculpture - he did not completely stop polishing, but used it sparingly.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks solitas. The image does look somewhat like him, but in the two known examples of probable self-portraits, he's just portraying himself as a character within the composition. This image appears a bit idealized, as if from memory, perhaps by one of his assistants, posthumously.

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