Figure Studies for the Sistine Ceiling (verso) (1510–11): Art, History and Details

Figure Studies for the Sistine Ceiling (verso) (1510–11) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Universally considered one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, Michelangelo devoted four years to painting the vast ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel. This preparatory study portrays one of the 20 athletic male nudes, known as ignudi, who serve as supporting figures at each corner of the Old Testament scenes painted down the center of the ceiling. Michelangelo worked out the positioning of the ignudi in red chalk drawings before beginning to paint each section of wet plaster. The energy and monumentality of the figure in red chalk, whose body extends beyond the sheet, suggests the heroic athleticism of Michelangelo’s sculpture.

Object facts

• Title: Figure Studies for the Sistine Ceiling (verso)
• Date: 1510–11
• Creator attribution: Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564)
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: red chalk heightened with traces of white
• Dimensions: Sheet: 23.4 x 33.5 cm (9 3/16 x 13 3/16 in.); Secondary Support: 24.4 x 34.4 cm (9 5/8 x 13 9/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - Italian
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 1940.465.b

Collection credit

Gift in memory of Henry G. Dalton by his nephews George S. Kendrick and Harry D. Kendrick

Further reading listed by the museum

• Francis, Henry S. "A Drawing in Red Chalk by Michelangelo." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 30, no. 3 (March 1943): 25-27.
• Pillsbury, Edmund P. Florence and the Arts; Five Centuries of Patronage. 1971.
• Olszewski, Edward J. "A Design for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 63, no. 1 (January 1976): 12-26.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.