A rare Michelangelo sketch will go on sale at Christie’s in Paris on May 18, the auction house said Tuesday.
The “exceptionally rare” drawing is ‘Young Male Nude (after Masaccio)’, one of the few sketches by the Sistine Chapel master still in private hands. It is believed to have been executed by the Renaissance great at the start of his career. It will be put up for auction in the auction titled “Maîtres anciens et du XIXe siècle”, with an estimate of some 30 million euros after travelling to Hong Kong and New York over the next few weeks. The sketch comes from a private French collection and was originally classed as a national treasure and banned from being exported for around 30 months. But the French government recently lifted the ban, Christie’s said.
