China News Service, Paris, May 19 (Li Yang and Li Yue) On May 18, local time, at an auction held in Paris, France, a painting by the famous Italian Renaissance painter Michelangelo at the end of the 15th century was The price of 23 million euros was auctioned.
On May 18, at Christie's Paris auction, Michelangelo's painting created at the end of the 15th century was sold for about 23 million euros, setting a record for Michelangelo's most expensive work.
Christie's has not disclosed the exact identity of the buyer of the work.
It is reported that this painting, as Michelangelo's first known nude study, is about the size of A4 paper and is called "Men Nude and Figure Sketch".
In this work, a nude man with hunched back and folded arms stands in front of two others, and is drawn with pen and brown ink.
Experts say the painting should have been inspired by Masaccio's fresco "The Baptism of the New Believers" painted in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence.
The work was discovered in a private French collection in 2019 by experts in the painting department at Christie’s. The previous collectors who collected the work did not know that it belonged to Michelangelo, but the work has been carefully preserved.
Christie's painting department experts say fewer than ten Michelangelos remained in private hands when the painting was certified as authentic.
Christie's auction house said that it had previously estimated that the auction price of the work could be as high as 30 million euros. Although it has not met expectations, the price of 23 million euros is still the highest auction price for Michelangelo's personal work.
According to data, the highest auction price for Michelangelo's previous works was 8.1 million pounds, set by another of his nude male studies, "The Risen Christ", at Christie's London auction in 2000.
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