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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > August > 19
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Michelangelo’s first painting on view Sept. 26
Michelangelo’s first painting, ‘The Torment of Saint Anthony,’ will go view Sept. 26 as part of the permanent collection of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth.
The painting is the first by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) to enter an American collection and one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to come from his hand.
The museum purchased the painting earlier this year for an undisclosed sum, though some news sources have reported that is was rumored to have sold for more than $6 million.
The painting — oil and tempera on a poplar panel measuring 47cm x 34cm — is dated 1487 or 88, when Michelangelo would have been 12 or 13. At that time the artist had befriended an assistant in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence and is known to have copied an engraving of St, Anthony by a German master called Martin Schongauer — a work already owned by the Kimbell.
Scholars, however, have long debated whether the painting was created by Michelangelo’s own hand or whether it was produced by other artists in the Florentine workshop.
New York art dealer Adam Williams purchased the painting at auction in July 2008 in London where it was sold as attributed ‘from the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio.’ Williams reportedly paid more than $2 million for the painting.
Once in the U.S., the painting was cleaned by restorers at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and experts there verified that the painting was from Michelangelo’s own hand. The Kimbell purchased the painting from Williams.
The painting was featured in an exhibit at the Met this summer. It will be on permanent display at the Kimbell.
Image: Michelangelo Buonarotti, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487-88. Tempera and oil on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
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