Michelangelo

“Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Master Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti” features a rich and varied selection of 26 works from the master’s collection, preserved in the artist's family home, the Casa Buonarroti, in Florence. The exhibition includes many of Michelangelo’s (1475–1564) great renowned drawings, which illustrate how he alternated between interpretations of the divine and the worldly, or profane, throughout his career. 

His powers to evoke the sacred are fully displayed in his large drawing of the Virgin and Child—one of his most admired images. A worldlier image is the imaginary portrait of Cleopatra, a black chalk presentation drawing he made as a gift for his friend Tommaso de' Cavalieri that is considered one of the Renaissance genius’s most poetic conceptions. The works selected for “Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane” will be divided between figure and architectural studies and include several major sheets never previously exhibited in the US. 

Above: Michelangelo, Cleopatra (detail), no date. Black chalk. Florence, Casa Buonarroti, inv. 2 F.