A small chalk drawing of a foot is expected to fetch up to $2 million when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s in New York in February. That’s because, as Christie’s.<\/b>
\nA small chalk drawing of a foot is expected to fetch up to $2 million when it goes under the hammer at Christie’s in New York in February. That’s because, as Christie’s explains, this foot has a place in one of the most famous frescos of all time. The auction house believes the previously unknown red chalk drawing, just five inches tall, was part of Michelangelo’s study for the Sistine Chapel’s iconic ceiling. It was submitted to the auction house online by a member of the public, who claimed it was by the Renaissance master. Christie’s, which receives many claims of the kind, was skeptical. But Giada Damen, Christie’s specialist in Old Master drawings, saw enough potential to look deeper, Artnet reports.<\/p>\n

After examining the piece’s history, materials, and comparing it to authenticated sketches in museum collections, Christie’s now contends the work is a study for the right foot of the Libyan Sibyl figure on the frescoed ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. Christie’s points to similarities between the drawing and another Michelangelo sheet, held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was used in the creation of the same figure around 1511-12. „It was clear that the two studies were by the same hand, done in the same moment“, Damen said, per Artnet.<\/p>\n

If Christie’s interpretation is accurate, it would make the drawing\u2014with an inscription reading „Michelangelo Bona Roti“\u2014one of only two Michelangelo Sistine Chapel studies still in private hands, Art News reports. It’s also „the only [commission] connected to the Sistine Chapel ceiling to ever come to auction“, per Christie’s. It hits the auction block on Feb. 5.<\/p>\n