New Michelangelo at the Met?

‘Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness’ has been declared a Michelangelo.

Spicezee Bureau

London: A painting that was bought by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art forty years ago, from London’s Sotheby, has been declared a Michelangelo by one of the world`s eminent scholars of the Italian Renaissance. News has it that ‘Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness’ has long been attributed to Michelangelo, who painted it in 1506. The painting was bought by Met from London’s Sotheby for 60,000 pounds as "close circle of Francesco Granacci." However, as a Granacci, the painting would be worth 400,000 pounds, but as a true Michelangelo, its value would be a whopping 150 million pounds. Talking to a news daily, Nuovi Studi, an Italian scholar, said, "I am confident that the only artist capable of making this splendid painting was Michelangelo." Studi, who has worked with the Met for several years said that while studying ‘Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness’, his eyes were drawn to the painted rocks, as if in a quarry. This immediately made him recall the quarry at Carrara, where Michelangelo complained of spending much time for the completion of ‘Pietà.’ Also, ‘Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness’ has striking resemblance to the two male nudes drawn by Michelangelo in the Louvre in Paris. Meanwhile, Alex Bell, the co-chairman of the Old Master Paintings Worldwide at Sotheby said that the paintings were catalogued "in accordance with current scholarly opinion" and finally added, "Questions of attribution relating to paintings produced at this period are often under review. Any new attribution for this particular panel will no doubt be a question which leading scholars will wish to consider and discuss."