Article: A Michelangelo discovery: Larry J. Feinberg discusses an unpublished sheet of drawings by Michelangelo that includes studies for the Sistine ceiling and a copy after a print by Mantegna.

In the 1568 edition of his Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari speaks with bemused admiration about the young Michelangelo's copying or, to be more precise, counterfeiting of prints. Vasari describes at some length Michelangelo's elaborate replica of Martin Schongauer's engraving Torment of St Anthony and notes that he faithfully reproduced sheets 'by the hands of various old masters'. (1) These copies were, in fact, forgeries, since, as Vasari goes on to report, Michelangelo 'aged' them with smoke and deceptively used them 'to obtain the originals from their owners'. (2) But it should come as no surprise that Michelangelo also occasionally copied older prints to learn ...

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