Rare Michelangelo found at stately home

Michelangelo's drawing was discovered at an English stately home

LONDON, England -- A previously unknown drawing by the young Michelangelo is expected to be sold for at least $8 million after being found among documents at an English stately home.

The early drawing by the Italian master, who went on to paint the Sistine Chapel and the dome of St Peter's Basilica in Rome, was discovered in the library at Castle Howard in northern England.

It was discovered by expert Julien Stock of auctioneers Sotheby's hidden among an otherwise undistinguished catalogue of old masters' drawings and now is expected to be sold for between $8.7 million and $11.6 million.

The auction house said the three-quarter length "Mourning Woman" is part of a small group of large-scale figure studies the artist is believed to have made between 1495 and 1505.

Simon Howard, who lives at Castle Howard, said the discovery had taken him entirely by surprise and he hoped it would remain in Britain.

Howard said: "Clearly this is a drawing of major importance which has been accepted by all the experts as being by Michelangelo and as such it should be on display in a national gallery or museum where everyone can enjoy it."

A Sotheby's spokeswoman said: "We're hopeful we'll be able to secure a private treaty sale. If that isn't successful then it could go to auction."

Sotheby's said the work, dated at around 1505, was only the second major drawing by Michelangelo to be discovered in the last 25 years.

The other, "Christ and the Woman of Samaria," fetched around $7.5 million at auction in New York in January 1998.

It is not clear when "Mourning Woman" entered the collection at Castle Howard, but it could have been purchased at a 1747 London auction.

Henry Howard, 4th Earl of Carlisle, is known to have been an active buyer at the time but it is unlikely he was aware it was a Michelangelo.

It was to be 250 years before the drawing's authorship was recognised. The drawing is similar to four other early figure drawings by Michelangelo, all in museum collections, in Paris, Munich, Vienna and London.

Each of these drawings shows one or two figures, drawn with very strong, dense penwork, on a large scale, so as to fill the sheet almost entirely.

Excluding the Michelangelo drawings in the Royal Collection, only three other important drawings by the artist are known that are still in private hands.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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