Drawing of Foot Discovered as Michelangelo Work Sells for $27.2 M.

Last March, an anonymous person submitted a framed photo of a small foot to Christie’s online “Request an Auction Estimate” portal. Less than a year later, after months of forensic research, the work was re-certified as an authentic work by Michelangelo and sold for $27.2 million against an estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million.

Experts at Christie’s identified the work as a previously unknown study of the feet of a Libyan witch, a figure from the artist’s Sistine Chapel ceiling. The painting sold after 45 minutes of bidding at Christie’s Old Masters and British Paintings sale in New York on Thursday, breaking the previous auction record for a Michelangelo work – another work sold for $24.3 million at Christie’s in Paris in 2022.

The red chalk drawing is one of only about 600 Michelangelo paintings known to exist, according to the auction house. Of these, approximately 50 are studies related to the Sistine Chapel.

“In my more than 23 years in the industry, I have been privileged to see many wonderful Old Master moments, but today is the highlight,” Andrew Fletcher, global head of Old Masters at Christie’s, which won the bid on behalf of the client, said in a statement.

The story of how this work arrived at Christie’s is almost as compelling as the painting itself. The person who submitted the photo said the piece had been on the wall for years and belonged to their grandmother. The back of the frame was sealed with tape and engraved with the words “Michelangelo” in my grandmother’s handwriting. The owner said they always thought it was a replica.

To verify the painting’s authenticity, Christie’s Old Master painting specialist Giada Damen examined the work using infrared reflection technology to reveal underpainting and other features invisible to the naked eye. She then cross-referenced it with other authentic red chalk studies of Michelangelo, particularly works in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Uffizi Gallery. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she found one drawing in particular that matched the newly discovered work very well.

“This painting stands out for its painterly quality,” Damen told reporters times of londonChief art critic Laura Freeman. “What we receive is usually reproductions, reproductions or drawings, not of high quality.” As for who purchased the piece, Damen speculated that it may have been purchased by a collector or institution in the Bay Area. After all, last fall there were rumors that the Abu Dhabi Department of Culture and Tourism had acquired the work of Gustav Klimt portrait of elizabeth lederer $236.4 million. It has long been reported that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman purchased a Leonardo da Vinci work Savior (approximately 1,500) $450 million. Why not another trophy for the region?