Overview
- Christie’s says the tiny red-ink foot study, dated to around 1511–1512 at 13.5 × 11.5 cm, was unknown to scholars and includes a concealed charcoal figure on the reverse revealed through infrared reflectography.
- Technical testing indicated 16th-century paper, a period inscription reading “Michelangelo Bona Roti” matched marks on other sheets, and stylistic comparison aligned it with a Metropolitan Museum drawing for the same figure.
- Specialists propose the new fragment and the Met sheet may once have formed a single larger page, a hypothesis that remains under active investigation.
- Provenance research traces the sheet from the 18th-century Swiss diplomat Armand Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin to a U.S. West Coast family; the current owner is anonymous and inherited it from a grandmother.
- Christie’s reports that international experts consulted agreed with the attribution, while the Met is not participating in a formal study of the sheet.