Michelangelo sketch fetches £6m

LONDON, England -- A Michelangelo drawing that had been lost in the library of an English stately home was auctioned for £5.94 million ($8.4m).

Sotheby's expert Julien Stock found the study of a Mourning Woman while going through a scrapbook of Old Master drawings at Castle Howard in northern England.

The sketch, which shows a woman with her face obscured by a heavy cloak, was bought by London art dealer Luca Baroni, Sotheby's said.

It was sold on behalf of the will trustees of Lord Howard of Henderskelfe.

The drawing had been in the collection for 250 years, but the owners apparently did not recognise it as a Michelangelo piece.

A spokesman for the auction house said: "It is the most significant Michelangelo find in living memory, like finding the Holy Grail."

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, is believed to be part of a small group of large-scale figure studies made between 1495 and 1505.

Simon Howard, who lives at Castle Howard, said the discovery had taken him entirely by surprise.

When the drawing was found last year 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."

Stock believes that the pen and brown ink sketch of the Mourning Woman could have been purchased at a 1747 London auction by Henry Howard, the 4th Earl of Carlisle who lived at Castle Howard.

The earl was known to have been an active buyer but it is unlikely he was aware it was a Michelangelo.

Sotheby's said the work 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 $7.5 million at auction in New York in January 1998.

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.