Epifania
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Epifania (Michelangelo drawing)
)| Epifania | |
|---|---|
black chalk on paper | |
| Dimensions | 232 cm × 165 cm (91 in × 65 in) |
| Location | British Museum, London |
Epifania (English: black chalk by Michelangelo, produced in Rome around 1550–53. It is 2.32 metres tall by 1.65 m wide, and is made up of 26 sheets of paper.
Subject matter
The composition shows the
Three Kings, which may be the reason for the title, but is now understood as referring to Christ's siblings mentioned in the Gospels (explained by Saint Epiphanias—another possible source for the title—as Joseph's sons by a previous marriage, and hence Mary's stepsons, leaving their marriage unconsummated—hence her pushing Joseph away—and Mary forever a virgin
).
History
Michelangelo's biographer Ascanio Condivi used this cartoon for an unfinished painting. A 19th-century Scottish collector, John Malcolm of Poltalloch, bought it for only £11 0s 6d. and, on John's death in 1893, his son John Wingfield Malcolm gave it to the British Museum.[1] Parliament voted £25,000 to purchase the rest of his collection for the museum two years later (equivalent to £3,072,162 in 2021). The cartoon is on display in Gallery 90 of the Museum.
Notes
- ^ BM PD 1895-9-15-518.
See also
References
- P. Barenboim (with Arthur Heath), Michelangelo’s Moment: The British Museum Madonna (LOOM, Moscow, 2018)
- J.A. Gere and N. Turner, Drawings by Michelangelo in the British Museum, exhibition catalogue (London, The British Museum Press, 1975)
- M. Hirst, Michelangelo and His Drawings (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988)
- M. Royalton-Kisch, H. Chapman and S. Coppel, Old Master Drawings from the Museum, exhibition catalogue (London, The British Museum Press, 1996)
- J. Wilde, Italian drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings, 2 (London, The British Museum Press, 1953)