Michelangelo’s bronze panther-riding nudes ‘discovered’
Two naked men riding a pair of ferocious panthers – not an extravagant show at last night’s Super Bowl but, experts believe, the only two surviving Michelangelo bronze sculptures.
Above: bronzes thought to be the work of Michelangelo (Copyright: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge)
Art historians believe they have found vital evidence that the two 500-year-old sculptures (pictured, above) were created by the Italian artist.
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Last year Professor Paul Joannides from the University of Cambridge linked the bronzes to a Renaissance drawing by one of Michelangelo’s apprentices (pictured, below).
Copyright: Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole
The drawing is a student’s copy of various lost sketches by Michelangelo, and includes a picture of a youth riding a panther. The sketch is drawn in the “abrupt, forceful manner that Michelangelo employed in designs for sculpture.”
Following the discovery a team of international experts, led by the University of Cambridge and Fitzwilliam Museum, compared the bronzes to other works by Michelangelo and found them to be “very similar in style and anatomy to his works of 1500 to 1510.”
Copyright: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The bronzes were first linked to Michelangelo when they appeared in the collection of Adolphe de Rothschild in the 19th century, but as they were undocumented and unsigned this attribution was dismissed until recently.
If confirmed, the sculptures are the only two surviving bronzes in the world.
Copyright: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
The bronzes have gone on display in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. The findings of the study will be presented at an international conference in July.