The Erstwhile Michelangelo Sleeping Cupid in the Turin Museo Di Antichita

Drawings in a manuscript in the Biblioteca Angelica in Rome provide important insights regarding Greco-Roman marbles owned by a range of late-sixteenth-century collectors Five of the sketches are of objects owned by Tommaso della Porta. Many of his antiquities passed into the hands of the Borghese family. This was not the case, however, with the statuette of a Sleeping Cupid which can be securely identified with one of the marbles from the Duke of Savoy's collection now in the Turin Museo di Antichità. The discovery of the provenance of this statuette is of particular importance since the Turin marble was at one time attributed to Michelangelo and was thought therefore to have come from the celebrated antiquarium of the Gonzaga of Mantua.

Art · Art history · Visual arts · Architecture and Art History Studies · Conservation Techniques and Studies · Renaissance and Early Modern Studies