Carrara marble helped find a picture of Michelangelo
Fahey Everett (Everett Fahy), a specialist in Italian Renaissance and a former curator of European paintings at New York's Metropolitan Museum, said that the painting, bought by the museum 40 years ago, painted by Michelangelo. This was written and The Guardian The Los Angeles Times.
It is about the painting "John the Baptist prophesied of the Messiah" (about 1510), which is attributed workshop Florentine painter Francesco Granacci. Granacci was six years older than Michelangelo, was friends with him and led him to study in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. In addition, Granacci little help Michelangelo paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Picture size 75.6 to 209.6 cm painted with oil, tempera and gold on wood. Critics, including those from the Uffizi Gallery, previously noted that this work than the rest of the image the Baptist brush Granacci. Fahey believes that he understood why. He analyzed the image, as well as drawing, discovered under the paint, and came to the conclusion that the painting was created in 1506, two years before the artist's work in the Sistine Chapel.
As the scientist said, once, while in the museum, he drew attention to the stones, as seen by artists, they are composed of both the quarry. Michelangelo complained that he spent too much time on the quarries in Carrara, where marble was mined for his "Pieta," Fahey recalled. Similar images were found on other paintings by Michelangelo.
Furthermore, the position is similar to John's two images of male figures, stored in the Louvre. One of these figures, in turn, associated with "David." The art also found similarities between the paintings and drawings from the Uffizi.
The painting was purchased by the Metropolitan Museum at auction at Sotheby's in London in 1970 for 150 thousand U.S. dollars. Now the cost of the painting is estimated at 600 thousand dollars. If the attribution of Michelangelo will be adopted by art historians, "John the Baptist" will cost at least $ 230 million.
65-page study Fahie will be published in Italian magazine Nuovi Studi.
http://www.lenta.ru/news/2010/04/15/mike/