Posted on Wednesday, May 15, 2024
This is the most significant drawing in North America. It lives at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is a set of preparatory sketches for the Libyan Sibyl figure in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace, by Michelangelo Buonarroti. It is a series of anatomical drawings of his male assistant, for the large fresco painting of the female prophetess, twisting as she closes a massive book.
It is among the greatest drawings produced by humanity. It showcases the artist handling confidently a massive amount of anatomic detail, observed directly from life, in a quick but subtle drawing, with a perfect balance of light and dark, hard lines and soft details, in a complex and dynamic pose.
It is also significant as the Sistine Chapel frescoes are apex masterpieces of the HIgh Renaissance from 1450 to 1550. The fresco is almost 13 ft. high and one of 343 figures Michelangelo painted on the chapel ceiling. This drawing is a piece of Michelangelo's process of corralling the anatomic information he would need to execute the fresco figure.
American artist John Singer Sargent helped negotiate the the purchase of the work in 1924.