I don't care very much, because it's a pretty bad work of sculpture. However, I also think it's genuine. Look at the feet of the three figures. They all show a wide separation between big toe and second toe. That's typical of Antique sculpture, because people wore sandals with a thong between the toes, which shaped the gap, and the sculptors copied the feature they saw in real life.
Me either, but not because of its esthetic qualities, or the lack thereof.
I just cannot get worked up about a debate of whether an "antique" sculpture is a fake done in the 1500's. Even if it is a "fake", isn't it still an antique?
What are they gonna do: dig up Michaelangelo and sue him?
Come on. Don't the academics have anything better to do?
Doncha think Michaelangelo himself would have picked up on this?
Why do ou think it is a bad piece of sculpture? I think that it is incredibly beautiful -- full of action and strength and detail. The sons are proportionally small, but I suppose that was done to diminish their importance in the story (or because the original block of stone was too small.)
Now, why do you suppose Michaelangelo might have sculpted it and allowed people to think that it was by someone else? This thread offers several good reasons: a possible commission, etc. Or, my thought is that he may have been in the employ of a patron (like the Vatican) at the time and not allowed to work on anything for anybody else. Perhaps he was moonlighting! Or, perhaps his patron would take offense at him working on sculpture depicting mythological characters, rather than on the people populating the Bible; so he hid the origin of the scupture and got paid under the table.
In any case, this looks like an interesting theory, but I would have no way to judge its accuracy.