Tiny Michelangelo sketch of a foot sells for more than US$27 million, an auction record

Michelangelo's sketch, a study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling, sold for more than US$27 million. (Christie's via CNN Newsource)

When the owner of a tiny sketch sent a photo of it to an auction house’s online valuation portal, they had no idea of its significance. The drawing is barely bigger than a hand. And it depicts only a foot, with its heel slightly raised off the ground and the outline of a shadow underneath.

Yet on Thursday, it sold for US$27.2 million including fees at a Christie’s sale in New York after the auction house identified Michelangelo as the artist responsible.

The Renaissance master sketched out this foot using red chalk in preparation for one of his frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling at the Vatican, which he painted between 1508 and 1512.

If you peer closely at the Libyan Sibyl on the chapel’s ceiling, an enormous figure turning to place a book behind herself, you can spot the corresponding foot twisted into exactly the same shape — toes slightly scrunched, heel raised off the ground, a shadow beneath.

She is one of 12 figures who decorate the edge of the ceiling, flanking the central frescoes that depict nine scenes from Genesis, the first book of the Bible.

“Standing in front of this drawing, one can grasp the full power of Michelangelo’s creative force; we can almost feel the physical energy with which he rendered the form of the foot, pressing the red chalk vigorously onto the paper,” Giada Damen, a specialist in Christie’s Old Master Drawings Department who identified the drawing, said in a statement.

The drawing offers a rare insight into the workings of Michelangelo. The vast majority of his sketches were lost over time, some burnt by Michelangelo himself, others destroyed by early collectors or simply during the process of his work, Christie’s said.

Only two sketches related to the Libyan Sibyl remain — one in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, and one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. In total, only 50 of the Sistine Chapel remain and no other ones have ever come to auction, according to Christie’s.

So when this sketch was discovered and auctioned, it sparked a bidding war, eventually selling for almost 20 times its original estimate and becoming the most expensive Michelangelo work sold at auction.

Even though the sketch was previously unknown to scholars, there were some clues to its provenance. Michelangelo’s name appears at the bottom left of the drawing in the same handwriting as the inscription on the Met’s, and, after months of detective work by Damen, leading experts on the artist unanimously agreed he drew this foot, Christie’s said.

The same family owned the drawing for more than 200 years, after Armand Francois Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin — a Swiss diplomat working for the King of Denmark — acquired it during his travels around Europe in the 18th century. He passed it on to his nephew, and his descendants kept the drawing, until they decided to auction it. Christie’s didn’t identify the buyer.

By Issy Ronald, CNN