Forget that newly rediscovered Leonardo, there’s been word more recently of a rediscovered Michelangelo. The news has been out in the UK for several days, but it got very little pickup here.
The 12 by 27-inch painting was found hanging in Campion Hall, a student residence at Oxford University. Titled “Crucifixion With The Madonna, St John And Two Mourning Angels,” it was puchased at Sotheby’s in the 1930s, and Italian scholar Antonio Forcellino says it has been misattributed. According to a BBC story:
The Campion Hall painting, which depicts the crucifixion, had been thought to be by Marcello Venusti.
But Antonio Forcellino said infra-red technology had revealed the true creator of the masterpiece.
It has been removed from a wall of the Jesuit academic community and sent to the Ashmolean Museum for safekeeping.
The Daily Mail did a little more reporting:
Michelangelo expert Professor William Wallace, of Washington University in the U.S., said yesterday: ‘The interesting thing is that Forcellino believes it is genuine and he is a reputable scholar.
‘We are never going to be totally sure if it is genuine as Michelangelo’s contemporaries would paint designs that he drew and it is down to the academic community to assess it.
‘It’s not a totally gorgeous object but it’s extremely important in telling us about the taste of the time.’
As one expert said on hearing the news, people are going to argue this back and forth for a long time. One can never tell from afar — even experts — but this story sounds more credible to me than the so-called Buffalo Michelangelo.
So let the debates begin.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of the BBC