Study of Haman's torso, arms outstretched, and further studies of arms, hands and an ear

The drawing studies the contorted figure of Haman in Michelangelo’s fresco Punishment of Haman, in the Sistine Chapel. The identity of the artist of this drawing remains unknown, but he must have had access, at some point, to Michelangelo’s drawing of the same composition, now in the Teylers Museum, Haarlem (inv. A016; see Michelangelo. Mind of the Master, exhib. cat., Cleveland, The Cleveland Art Museum, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2019, no. 8, ill.). The present drawing copies the Teylers sheet almost identically, even down to the pentimenti seen throughout (though the draftsman does omit a small study of the right hand seen in the lower left corner of the original drawing). The draftsman also employs the same chalk colors as Michelangelo, using a firm red chalk for the figure and limbs, with black chalk used to draw lightly the gnarled crucifix in the lower right of the sheet.