MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
(b. 1475, Caprese, d. 1564, Roma)

Male Nude (recto)

c. 1503
Pen in two shades of brown, 375 x 197 mm
Musée du Louvre, Paris

This figure is most likely an early concept for the figure of St John the Evangelist is the unfinished Entombment in London, although other works by Michelangelo (the marble David, slaves for the tomb of Julius II, the Genius of Victory in the Palazzo Vecchio) have also been connected with the drawing.

The verso of the sheet shows studies of two women, one with a child.