A very rare, newly discovered Michelangelo study for the Sistine Chapel ceiling

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in 1475 in Caprese, southeast of Florence, to an impoverished Florentine family of minor nobility. In the sixteenth century, when longevity was exceptional, he lived to eighty-eight, dying in Rome in 1564 as an extremely famous and wealthy man.

Throughout his life, Michelangelo drew constantly. It was through drawing that he planned and prepared his projects, developed his inventions, and refined his ideas.

Unfortunately, the surviving sheets by his hand, numbering roughly six hundred, total only a fraction of the thousands of drawings he must have produced.

Very rarely new drawings have been rediscovered and added to Michelangelo’s graphic corpus over the decades. Almost all of Michelangelo’s known studies, excluding architectural drawings and the sketches of marble blocks Michelangelo used to send to his quarry masters, are now in public collections. Only about ten sheets, including this newly discovered drawing, are in private hands. Furthermore, no recorded study for the Sistine Chapel has ever come to auction — until now.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling

In the two decades between 1500 and 1520 Michelangelo was in his physical and artistic prime. At that time, he lived and worked between Florence and Rome, undertaking several of the most prestigious and monumental projects of his career, including a commission from Rome by Pope Julius II della Rovere to paint the enormous vault of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

The enterprise was ambitious, as the surface of the vault measures about 530 square meters (5,700 square feet), yet Michelangelo conceived an elaborate decorative program for it.

He designed a painted illusionistic architectural framework simulating white marble with, at the center of the vault, nine compartments with episodes from the Book of Genesis.

Flanking the biblical scenes are twenty ignudi (athletic nude youths) seated on illusionistic plinths next to fictive bronze medallions with episodes from the Book of Maccabees. Below these figures, seven monumental Prophets alternate with five Sibyls, each seated on a throne around the ceiling.

The Sybil’s foot

Immediately after receiving the commission for the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo began working on studies for the frescoes. Over the following months and years, he continued to produce studies, proceeding piecemeal as he painted the ceiling gradually, completing one bay of the vault after another. Through preparatory drawings Michelangelo studied each of the figures, meticulously planning every detail of their poses and anatomy.

Michelangelo worked for four years on the Sistine ceiling and during this time he must have produced many hundreds of drawings, yet most of these studies are now lost.

In the earliest studies made for the Sistine Michelangelo primarily employed pen and ink, and black chalk. As time progressed, however, Michelangelo began using red chalk more frequently, especially for studies of the human figure which he drew after live models. Red chalk was considered a more challenging medium than black chalk as it is a harder stone and more difficult to erase from paper, yet some of the qualities of red chalk, such as the range of its colour and sharpness, made it particularly well suited for drawing the human body.

Unknown until now, the sheet belongs to an important group of red-chalk figure studies that Michelangelo made from live models in preparation for the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. These drawings are widely considered Michelangelo’s finest achievements in the medium.

The study of the foot on the recto of the sheet is preparatory for the Libyan Sibyl, one of the ceiling’s most memorable figures, painted in the last bay at the east end of the chapel. The power and precision of the drawing, which focuses on the visual effects of the Sibyl’s toes pressing on the ground, shows Michelangelo’s enduring commitment to the careful representation of the human body. The gigantic figure of the Sibyl, frescoed in a scale that is about three times life-size, is portrayed in a complex pose: arrested in motion while stepping down from the throne and holding an enormous open book of prophecy, the tips of her feet holding her entire weight.

Another drawing for the Libyan Sibyl at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York is a drawing for the fresco of the Libyan Sybil which has been described as ‘the most magnificent drawing by Michelangelo in North America.’

The drawing contains several studies: the larger image is the figure of a nude seated youth seen from the back with the head in profile, his arms are bent and the upper body turned in an elegant contrapposto, showing the formidable musculature of his back. The study of the youth, closely observed from a living model — most likely a young male assistant posing in the studio — was transformed into the Sibyl in the fresco. In the painting she is fully clothed except for her powerful shoulders, arms, and bare feet.

On the Metropolitan sheet, next to the body of the youth, are studies of other details with which Michelangelo filled the paper: another sketch of the torso, the head in profile, the right foot and various iterations of the toes, and the left hand.

Michelangelo knew that the Sybil would be painted clothed, but with bare feet. This might explain his insistence in exploring the poses of her feet: the left foot on the Metropolitan sheet and the right one on the newly discovered drawing.

Through the eyes of a Specialist

The new drawing shows Michelangelo’s enduring commitment to the careful representation of the human body. He drew the foot with powerful energy, studying the visual effects of the toes pressing on the ground and bearing the full weight of this monumental figure.

By looking carefully at the outlines of the back of the heel, we see how Michelangelo first drew the shape with a delicate chalk line and then strengthened it with a more vigorous stroke. This is characteristic of his exploratory working method. These sort of pentimenti suggest that Michelangelo was adjusting the pose of the foot while he drew; he was thinking on paper how to best render the tension of the foot lifted on the toes.

Standing in front of this drawing, one can grasp the full power of Michelangelo’s creative force; we can almost feel the physical energy with which he rendered the form of the foot, pressing the red chalk vigorously onto the paper. The design was later transferred to the wet plaster on the ceiling, the final position of the foot slightly altered so that the Sibyl's weight is almost entirely supported by the toes. This demonstrates how relentlessly Michelangelo was driven to perfect his work, even in the final stages of painting.

This drawing has never appeared on the market and is unpublished. For centuries, the sheet has remained in private hands, unrecorded and unknown to scholars. Since coming to light earlier this year, and following several months of research at Christie’s, experts on Michelangelo have unanimously recognised the artist's hand in the studies on both the recto and verso of the sheet.

In front of this study, we are reminded of how relevant Michelangelo’s drawings still are for us today. As noted by art historian and curator Carmen Bambach, the drawings of this artist ‘afford the most direct glimpse over the shoulders of the genius, instantly melting away five hundred years to reveal a profoundly intimate creative process.’

The discovery of this drawing is highly significant, not only because it was created by one of the greatest artists of all time, but also because it is a rare preparatory study for what can only be described as a seminal work of the High Renaissance.

The drawing will be on view in Christie’s London headquarters on King Street this week during London Classic Week. It will also be on view in Christie’s New York at 20 Rockefeller Center in February 2026 prior to New York Classic Week. Both Christie’s London and Christie’s New York galleries are free and open to the public.