Unknown Michelangelo work expected to bring in millions

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A previously unknown drawing by a young Michelangelo is up for sale in Britain, but only museums or art lovers with millions to spare need apply.

The early work by the Italian master, who later unleashed his talents on the Sistine Chapel and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, was discovered in the library of Castle Howard in northeast England, Sotheby's said Tuesday.

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

Its value reflects its rarity at $8.7 million to $11.6 million.

With the insurance costs to display the work at the castle in Yorkshire verging on the astronomical, the trustees of Lord Howard of Henderskelfe will want a British museum, gallery or other institution to put it on public view.

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

Sotheby's said the work found at Castle Howard, 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," sold for just less than $7.5 million at auction in New York in January 1998.

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