Lot 1205 D α

With a red lacquer seal with the French royal coat of arms on the reverse, the frame inscribed ‘MICHEL ANGELO BUONAROTI. Orleans Gallery’.

This composition reproduces a famous drawing by Michelangelo and was repeated several times by Marcello Venusti and his workshop. The present work, painted on copper, was once part of the important Orléans Collection in Paris, which was sold off during and after the French Revolution. This is indicated by the lacquer seal on the reverse and the frame from the early 19th century.
However, as Simona Capelli writes in her expertise, it is not the painting from the collection that is documented as being sold at auction in London, by James Christie among others, at the beginning of the 19th century, as that piece was painted on panel and the descriptions in contemporary publications differ in detail from the execution of this work. Simona Capelli therefore assumes that the present painting is a second version from the workshop of Marcello Venusti, which was also in the Orléans collection.