May 13, 2009
Michelangelo’s First Painting
The Kimbell Art Museum in Ft. Worth has purchased what is believed to be Michelangelo’s first painting, painted when the artist was twelve or thirteen years old.
Last summer an art dealer bought it for nearly $2 million at a Sotheby’s auction and then took it to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, where one department chairman shared his hunch that it was the work of the Renaissance artist, Lee said.
Experts in the Met’s paintings conservation department carefully cleaned it by removing decades of dirt, as well as paint layers that art restorers had applied through the ages to fill in chips or dull areas, Lee said.
When they examined the painting further using X-rays and infrared technology, they were able to see how the artist made certain brush strokes, scraped paint layers to achieve detail and even changed elements of the painting before the final version, Lee said.
Museum experts said they determined it not only was Michelangelo’s — based on similarities to his other works and the artist’s stories of the piece as told to biographers — but also that it was his earliest work — based on its age and details in the painting. The confirmation came a few months ago, and then the Kimbell decided to buy it, Lee said.
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