The Day (one of a pair)

Michelangelo Buonarroti

ca. 1600 · Terracotta · European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

The origin of these (see also 1971.206.36), as of the numerous other reduced versions of Michelangelo's brooding personifications on the Medici tombs, is a vexed issue. The style of this pair differs markedly from Michelangelo's own; the careful surfaces and precise, formalized delineation of the musculature and hair suggest a late mannerist Florentine source, but an eighteenth-century origin in the north has also been proposed.

Artist

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Date

ca. 1600

Medium

Terracotta

Culture

Italian

Department

European Sculpture and Decorative Arts

Credit line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Wrightsman, 1971