When on Wednesday at Christie's in Paris, as a spectacular prelude to the old master auction, a drawing entitled "Male Nude with Two Figures" newly attributed to Michelangelo was called for 17 million euros, the tension in the fully occupied hall was great.
After a lightning-fast exchange, however, no further bids came up at 20 million euros.
The estimate for the young man's nude, expertly drawn in brown ink, was obviously too optimistic at 30 million euros.
Nevertheless, the hammer price is the highest ever for a drawing in Europe.
Most recently, a study by the Florentine master was auctioned at Christie's in London for £8.1 million in 2000.
Again and again rewrites
The figure at the center of the study is one of the baptized from Masaccio's fresco "Peter Baptizing the New Converts" in the Florentine Brancacci Chapel.
In 1907 the sheet was auctioned off in the Paris Drouot as being by a Michelangelo pupil.
When the drawing was rediscovered in the collection of pianist Alfred Cortot's descendants in 2019, experts attributed it to Michelangelo.
The French state classified the paper as a national treasure;
however, the purchase was finally refrained from.
Old master drawings, which mostly remain unsigned as “small” sheets or studies and have been archived more carelessly over the centuries than paintings, for example, are repeatedly reattributed.
Despite expertise, this drawing will also keep its very last secret.