It's like a miracle when a masterpiece turns up in a collection and undergoes a significant re-attribution: The virtuoso drawing, which will be called up on May 18 at Christie's in Paris during the Old Masters auction, comes from a French private collection.

It shows a male nude, executed in brown ink, surrounded by two more quickly sketched figures.

The nude was drawn from a figure from Masaccio's fresco "Baptism of the New Converts" from around 1427 in the Brancacci Chapel in Florence.

In the 18th century the work is said to have belonged to the Turin collector Modesto Genevosio;

in the 19th century it entered the Borghese collection.

The drawing's border has the name Pietro Faccini on it - apparently it was once thought to be the work of the Bolognese Baroque painter.

When the work resurfaced in 2019 and was being examined for a possible sale, Italian Renaissance art historian Furio Rinaldi recognized the style and execution as the hand of the polymath Michelangelo Buonarroti.

The attribution has been confirmed by the specialist in Michelangelo drawings, Paul Joannides.

As a result, the French Ministry of Culture classified the paper as a national treasure in order to examine a possible purchase within the specified period of thirty months.

This is now definitely omitted, and an export certificate enables sales abroad.

There are around four hundred drawings by Michelangelo, fewer than ten of which are privately owned.

The Florentine painter, sculptor and master builder, who died at the then unusually high age of 89, burned many of his studies on paper - only the most perfect ones were to be preserved for posterity.

The rediscovered sheet offers the opportunity to take a closer look at the early work.

It is Michelangelo's first known study of a nude, made at the end of the 15th century when the young artist copied the Florentine masters for study, notably Masaccio in the Brancacci Chapel.

Two sheets of similar size by Michelangelo, which are interesting for comparing styles and which he drew after Masaccio, are in the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung in Munich and in the Albertina in Vienna.

Giorgio Vasari reports in the mid-16th century that Michelangelo impressed the artists of his time and aroused envy with his studies in the Brancacci Chapel.

In fact, it is remarkable how securely the posture of the baptismal candidate, who is shivering and crossing his arms in front of his body, is maintained.

"Male Nude with Two Figures in the Background" is an anatomical study.

The volumes are shaped by the future sculptor as if with a chisel in fine, contrasting hatchings that bring out the muscles.

The youthful figure, whose posture and position were visibly corrected during the drawing process, appears more robust than its model.

In Masaccio's fresco, which shows the baptism of new converts by the apostle Peter, the technique is freer.

The expectation for the exceptional sheet, which will be exhibited from May 13th to 18th in Paris, is 30 million euros.

The previous record for a drawing by Michelangelo was set in 2000 by a study of the Risen Christ, which brought in 8.1 million pounds with buyer's premium at Christie's in London.