New Michelangelo drawing for the Sistine Chapel identified by Paul Joannides

Paul Joannides, professor emeritus of art history at the University of Cambridge, has identified a new preparatory drawing by Michelangelo for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The red chalk study of a nude man seen from behind, acquired by a private collector in 2014, corresponds to a figure struggling with snakes in the Bronze Serpent scene on the left pendentive above the altar. Michelangelo completed that fresco around 1512, dating the drawing to the same year. The attribution was made by rotating the image 90 degrees to align with the painted figure. Previously attributed to Rosso Fiorentino, the drawing (15.7 x 19.3 cm) once belonged to Sir John Charles Robinson and bears his initials JCR. Joannides published his findings in The Burlington Magazine. The discovery is significant because Michelangelo destroyed many of his drawings before his death, as Giorgio Vasari recorded in his Lives (1550), making surviving preparatory works extremely rare. Casa Buonarroti holds the largest collection of Michelangelo's graphic works, including studies for the Sistine Chapel vault. The drawing was brought to Joannides' attention by its anonymous owner, who first suggested the connection to the Bronze Serpent fresco. Joannides had previously noted a black-and-white photograph of the drawing at the Witt Library, Courtauld Institute of Art.