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'Lost Michelangelo' Found Down Back Of Sofa
4:08pm Tuesday October 12, 2010
David Williams
A painting a family had stored behind their sofa for over 30 years could be a lost Michelangelo worth £190m.
A Michelangelo expert's initial scepticism vanished after X-ray tests were performed
To retired pilot Martin Kober, the family heirloom picturing the Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus was simply referred to as "The Mike". The work, passed down from his great-grandfather, had hung in the living room of the family's home near Niagara Falls, upper New York, for decades.
It was even knocked off the wall by a stray tennis ball before being wrapped up, undamaged, and placed behind the sofa in the mid-1970s. Twenty-five years passed before Mr Kober realised he was sitting in front of a gold mine after investigating the painting which had finally been passed down to him.
An expert on the Italian master was consulted, whose deep-set scepticism vanished after x-ray tests were performed. Antonio Forcellino, Michelangelo biographer and art historian, is convinced the lost work - The Lost Pieta - is genuine. "I had assumed it was going to be a copy," he told The Sunday Times.
The X-rays that have been done are key. They reveal his changes of mind ... it couldn't possibly be a copy by another artist.
<cite> Antonio Forcellino, Michelangelo biographer and art historian
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"In reality, this painting was even more beautiful than the versions hanging in Rome and Florence. The truth was this painting was much better than the ones they had. "I had visions of telling them that there was this crazy guy in America telling everyone he had a Michelangelo at home."
The 25in by 19in work is believed to have been painted in 1545, and - once confirmed as genuine - will hang as one of the few surviving oil paintings the Renaissance great created on wood panel. Mr Kober said research suggests it passed from Italy to Croatia, then on to Germany, before coming into his ancestors' possession on America's East Coast.
Forcellino is in no doubt the work was made by the hand of the Italian master. "The X-rays that have been done are key," he told the Sunday Times. "They reveal his changes of mind; he moved the face of Christ, covered up grass to the left of the Virgin and left an area next to her right leg unfinished.
"It couldn't possibly be a copy by another artist." Now safely stored in a bank vault, the painting will no longer be relegated behind Mr Kober's furniture. Once its place in art history is verified, it will tour the world's galleries with no indication the family will cash in on the ultimate prize found down the back of the sofa.
The painting in its entirety
