500-year-old sculptures may be Michelangelos

from The Economist
VERY exciting if this turns out to be true!

MICHELANGELO is arguably the world's best-known sculptor of marble. He also worked with bronze, yet none of his bronze sculptures are believed to have survived to the present day. Now, experts at the University of Cambridge and the Fitzwilliam Museum (also in Cambridge) are disputing that assumption. They have presented two sculptures of muscular male nudes as being the work of Michelangelo himself. The figures, one young and the other older, both ride on panthers and have raised arms.

If the attribution is endorsed by scholars round the world, the 500-year-old, one-metre-high bronzes would become this century's second-most spectacular Renaissance discovery after Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi".

The scholar linking the bronzes to Michelangelo is Paul Joannides, a professor of art history at Cambridge. When he was recently approached by the bronzes' owner for an appraisal, Professor Joannides says, the sculptures reminded him of a drawing by one of the master's apprentices, which he had come across at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier (and which was not widely known or written about). That drawing faithfully reproduced an original Michelangelo sketch and showed a well-built youth on the back of a panther, in a pose that resembled the young bronze riders'. It was also executed in the vigorous style that Michelangelo used when designing for sculpture.

The professor saw other corroborating elements. The Albertina Museum in Vienna had a set of drawings of lions and panthers associated with Michelangelo; he and his circle were known to be interested in large felines in the first decade of the 16th century. The professor concluded that the sculptures were made by Michelangelo as he was just beginning to paint the Sistine Chapel.

I really feel discoveries like this are few and far between anymore. Perhaps we have found most of the "masterpieces" in the world OR given these circumstances possibly there are more still waiting to be found!

It would be nice if we got to hear from the person wanting the appraisal done - I like hearing how they came to own an object & the history they know about it...

Especially when it's something as unique as a pair of 3 foot naked guys on the backs of panthers.

It may be too late to ask the owner by now though because I'm sure he's beside himself with excitement & not about to tell you anything that would conflict the "it's a Michelangelo" story-line.

My understanding is that there are no known bronze Michelangelo statues...anywhere! That fact is going to be really hard to get over. I know the story quotes Michelangelo as 'He also worked with bronze' but without any known examples that statement seems difficult for me to agree with.

It is so common now for collectors to try to attribute some piece to a master due to the insane amount of money involved. Without any other known bronze works to compare with it may very well be impossible to decide if Michelangelo actually did them or not.

a reply to: DjembeJedi

If they are indeed 500 years old then i guess its possible but like the above poster said, they could have been made by anyone and maybe not all that long ago...

By the 5 days ago I changed my Avatar to the Pink Panther. Coincidences happen often with me.