Last March, an anonymous buyer contacted Christie’s website regarding the valuation of a sketch they owned. The sketch belonged to the owner’s grandmother and only had the inscription “Michelangelo” in the back. The family, for decades, assumed it was a replica before the owner decided to check its veracity
Almost 10 months later, experts at Christie’s concluded that the sketch was an authentic work by Michelangelo. More specifically, the sketch – which depicts a foot – was a study of Libyan Sibyl, a figure which would go on to adorn the famous Sistine Chapel. This makes the sketch only among the 600 works by the Italian master that have survived to modern day.
Last week on Thursday, the sketch appeared on the Old Master and British Drawings sale in New York by Christie’s. Coming with a presale estimate of $1.5 million – $2 million, the work surprised everyone with a final hammer of $27.2 million. Furthermore, it set a new record for Michaelangelo, breaking the previous one of $24.3 million set in 2022.
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The buyer of the work is as anonymous as the seller. However, it is being speculated that the buyer could have been from Saudi Arabia. Some even pointed towards the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has also been linked to the ownership of other rare finds like Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elizabeth Lederer and Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi.
