It began with a photograph uploaded without fanfare to Christie’s “Request an Auction Estimate” portal. The owner had no idea that the image showed a previously unknown drawing by Michelangelo – a preparatory study for one of the most celebrated works in Western art, the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
On 5 February, that drawing sold at Christie’s in New York for US$27.2 million, nearly twenty times its low estimate and setting a new auction record for the artist. The previous high, US$24.3 million, was set in 2022 when A Nude Man (after Masaccio) and Two Figures Behind Him, a pen‑and‑ink drawing, sold at Christie’s in Paris.
Initially estimated at US$1.5 million, the work prompted a 45‑minute bidding contest between collectors in the room, telephone bidders, and online participants, before Andrew Fletcher, global head of Old Masters, placed the winning bid of US$23.1 million on behalf of his client. It is the only known study for the Sistine ceiling ever to appear at auction, and one of only about ten Michelangelo drawings still in private hands.
The seller, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons, is from Northern California and a direct descendant of a Swiss diplomat and noted collector of Old Master drawings and prints, according to Christie’s. He inherited the drawing from his grandmother in 2002, and it had been in the family since the late 1700s.
Auctioneer Georgina Hilton brought the hammer down at US$23.1 million
Andrew Fletcher, global head of Old Masters, placed the winning bid on behalf of his client
Lot 8 | Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese 1475-1564 Rome) | Study for a foot of the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Study of a leg with knee bent (verso), red chalk (recto); black chalk (verso) (Auction record for the artist)
13.5 x 11.5 cm
Provenance:
- Possibly Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566), Rome; possibly by inheritance to
- Michele degli Alberti (documented 1535-1568), Rome (possibly the Bona Roti Collector)
- Armand François Louis de Mestral de Saint-Saphorin (1738-1805), Switzerland; by inheritance to his nephew
- Armand Louis Henri de Mestral (1772-1854), Switzerland; by descent to
- Armand Gabriel Eugène Henri de Mestral (1815-1873), Switzerland; by descent to
- Victor Georges Alexis Armand de Mestral (1854-1937), Switzerland; by descent to
- Gérard Armand de Mestral (1883-1964), Switzerland; by descent to
- Hélène Liliane de Mestral von Steiger (1916-2011), Bern, Switzerland; by descent to the present owner
Estimate: US$1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Hammer Price: US$23,100,000
Sold: US$27,200,000
Auction House: Christie’s New York
Sale: Old Master and British Drawings
Date: 5 February 2026
The discovery began, as so many do today, with an online valuation request. In March last year, Giada Damen, a specialist in Christie’s Old Master Drawings department, received images of the sheet through the auction house’s public portal. Such submissions are routine – she fields them every week – and anyone can upload a photograph.
This time, the pictures showed a study of a foot in red chalk, mounted and framed with another drawing. The collector had known the work all his life from his grandmother’s house, but he did not know who had made it. Damen immediately recognised the quality of the sheet and its apparent 16th‑century character, though she was careful not to leap to conclusions.
She flew to see the drawing in person and, with the owner’s permission, brought it back to Christie’s in New York. That visit marked the beginning of six months of painstaking research.
Giada Damen, specialist in Christie’s Old Master Drawings department
The present lot unmounted
A Nude Man (after Masaccio) and Two Figures Behind Him, | Sold for US$24.3 million at Christie's Paris in 2022 (Previous auction record for Michelangelo)
The drawing was first examined with infrared reflectography, which revealed further sketches on the reverse of the sheet – hidden from view because it had been laid down onto another paper support – that also appeared to be by a 16th‑century Italian hand close to Michelangelo.
Damen noted that the work was similar in medium, style, and subject to a famous red‑chalk drawing by Michelangelo at The Met. At the time, that sheet was out on loan, but a copy of it in the Uffizi in Florence includes the same studies seen on the New York drawing, with one additional element: the very foot that appears on the Christie’s sheet.
Eventually, Damen brought the newly found drawing to the Met and set it beside the Michelangelo. The comparison, according to Christie’s, confirmed what the research had suggested: the two sheets were by the same hand, made at the same moment, for the same project – studies for the Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Michelangelo | Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto) | Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The Libyan Sibyl, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
The Libyan Sibyl highlighted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508-1512, Vatican City
The Metropolitan Museum sheet includes studies of the Libyan Sibyl’s back, head, left foot, and hand; the newly identified drawing shows her right foot. On the reverse of both sheets are loose anatomical studies in black chalk, also attributed to Michelangelo.
Like the Met’s example, the Christie’s drawing shows signs of having been cut from a larger sheet, most likely a preparatory page containing numerous studies of the figure.
The rediscovered sheet also bears a distinctive inscription in brown ink, written in a 16th‑century hand: “Michelangelo Bona Roti.” Identical inscriptions appear on several other drawings attributed to the artist. According to Christie’s, the annotation helps trace the drawing’s provenance from artists in Michelangelo’s own circle in the 16th century into a 17th‑century Italian collection.
By the 18th century, the sheet had entered the collection of Armand François Louis de Mestral de Saint‑Saphorin (1738-1805), a Swiss diplomat in the service of the King of Denmark, and was later inherited by the present consignor’s family. Unpublished and never before on the market, the sheet remained in private hands for centuries, unknown to scholars.
Details of the Libyan Sibyl
(Left) the present lot; (right) Libyan Sibyl’s left foot in the Met example
The rediscovered sheet bears a distinctive inscription in brown ink, reading “Michelangelo Bona Roti”
In the first decades of the 16th century, Michelangelo was in his physical and artistic prime, moving between Florence and Rome and working on some of his most ambitious projects, including the colossal marble David in Florence and the tomb of Pope Julius II, his most celebrated patron, in Rome.
In 1508, Julius II summoned him to paint the chapel’s vast vault, replacing an earlier painted sky with a new fresco scheme that would cover the entire surface, measuring about 5,700 square feet.
Michelangelo devised a complex programme of illusionistic architecture framing nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, flanked by athletic nude youths, with a ring of seven prophets and five sibyls seated on thrones below. The Libyan Sibyl, for whom both the Met sheet and the newly identified drawing are studies, is among these monumental figures.
To realise this vision, Michelangelo relied heavily on preparatory drawings, adjusting poses and anatomy on paper as he advanced bay by bay across the ceiling. Contemporary sources suggest he made hundreds of such studies for the project, most of which were later destroyed at his direction.
The back of the present drawing
Raphael | Head of a Young Apostle | Sold for £29.7 million at Sotheby’s London (Auction record for an Old Master drawing)
Raphael | Head of a Muse | Sold for £29.2 million at Christie’s London in 2009
Of the roughly 600 sheets by Michelangelo that survive today, this is one of only about 50 studies related to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Almost all of the artist’s surviving drawings – excluding architectural studies and the block sketches he sent to quarry masters – are now in public collections.
Works on paper by the “big three” Italian High Renaissance masters – Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael – almost never reach the open market. When they do, they can command exceptional prices.
In 2012, Raphael’s black‑chalk study Head of a Young Apostle for his painting The Transfiguration, sold at Sotheby’s London for £29.7 million (US$47.9 million), setting the current auction record for an Old Master drawing. That result narrowly surpassed the price achieved three years earlier by another Raphael sheet, Head of a Muse – a study for the Vatican fresco Parnassus – which realised £29.2 million (US$47.8 million) at Christie’s London.