Michelangelo Buonarroti
The young Saint John the Baptist
Museo del Prado exhibits the only Michelangelo in Spain Museo del Prado exhibits ‘The Young Saint John the Baptist’, the only sculpture by Michelangelo to be found in Spain, a marble that belongs to the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli-Sevilla.]]>
April 2, 2015. Source: Museo del Prado
For three months, the Museo del Prado will be exhibiting The Young Saint John the Baptist, the only sculpture by Michelangelo in Spain. It can now be seen in Room 47 of the Museum’s Villanueva Building. This is an early work by the artist dating from prior to the Vatican Pietà and the Sistine Chapel frescoes. It was given by the Duke of Florence, Cosimo I de’ Medici, to Francisco de los Cobos, secretary to the Emperor Charles V. Cobos had it sent to his villa in Sabiote (Spain) then after his death it adorned the funerary chapel that he had built in his native city of Úbeda.
On display in the chapel of the Salvador in Úbeda (Jaén) from the 16th century, it was published in 1930 as a work by Michelangelo. A few years later at the outset of the war in 1936 it was seriously damaged and was reduced to pieces.
The Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli-Sevilla, which owns the work, commissioned its restoration from the Opificio delle Pietre Dure e Laboratori di Restauro in Florence, a project that began in 1994. Following a lengthy and delicate restoration process using the most advanced 3-d laser volumetric reconstruction and after the display of the sculpture in Florence and Venice, The Young Saint John the Baptist is now returning to Spain to be shown at the Museo del Prado within its “Invited Work” programme, after which it will return to its original location in Úbeda.
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