Christie’s has set a new world record with the sale of a previously unknown drawing by Michelangelo Buonarroti. The work, a preparatory study for the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, was auctioned on Thursday, February 5, for $27.2 million, approximately €23.1 million. It marks the highest price ever achieved for a work on paper by the Renaissance master.
The drawing is a red chalk study depicting the right foot of the Libyan Sibyl, one of the monumental figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. According to Christie’s, the work dates to 1511–1512 and was executed shortly before Michelangelo began the second phase of the celebrated fresco cycle.
The sheet surfaced through Christie’s online service “Request an Auction Estimate.” Giada Damen, a specialist in the Old Master Drawings department, received the photograph and immediately recognized its exceptional importance. A thorough research campaign followed, including scientific analysis and stylistic comparisons with works held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Uffizi in Florence. A direct comparison with an autograph drawing at the Met proved decisive in confirming the attribution. Provenance research further strengthened the case: in the 18th century the sheet belonged to Swiss diplomat Armand Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin. The drawing also bears a 16th-century brown ink inscription with the signature “Michelangelo Bona Roti,” similar to those found on other autograph works.
Offered with an estimate of $1.5 to $2 million, the drawing sparked a fierce 45-minute bidding battle. Starting at $1.4 million, bids quickly climbed to a hammer price of $23.1 million, reaching $27.2 million with buyer’s premium. The result surpasses the previous auction record for a Michelangelo drawing, set in Paris in 2022.
The work belonged to an anonymous private collector on the U.S. West Coast, who had inherited it from his grandmother along with other family heirlooms. The sheet had been passed down in Europe since the late 18th century, though its authorship was unknown to the family. Of the roughly 600 surviving drawings by Michelangelo, only about a dozen remain in private hands, and just around fifty are directly connected to the Sistine Chapel project.
