The academic world is occasionally disrupted by someone, somewhere, uploading a photograph to an auction house portal. This time—almost absurdly—a jpg of a foot has stopped the presses. An unsuspecting owner in the American West sent Christie’s a pair of inherited drawings for a routine valuation. What came back was anything but routine: a previously unknown study by Michelangelo, tied directly to the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
Giada Damen, a specialist in Christie’s Old Master Drawings Department, was the one who spotted it—first on her screen, later in her hands, and eventually in the cold, revealing glare of infrared imaging. The drawing, a muscular red chalk study for the right foot of the Libyan Sibyl, sits at the far east end of the Sistine ceiling. It’s a part of the composition so iconic that most visitors crane their necks without knowing exactly why. Now, for the first time, one of those preparatory sheets is heading to auction.
A few blunt facts to underline the scale of this: it’s the first unrecorded study for the Sistine ceiling ever to reach the market; only around ten Michelangelo drawings remain in private hands; and of the roughly 600 surviving sheets attributed to the artist—pitiful compared to the thousands he must have churned out—only about fifty relate to the Sistine project. So yes, this is a big one.
Christie’s will offer the sheet in New York on 5 February 2026, with an estimate of $1.5–2 million, a figure that suddenly feels modest given its rarity. It’ll be exhibited at Rockefeller Centre in February 2026, but the public can get an early look in London this winter, 27 November to 2 December 2025, at Christie’s King Street.
Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s global Old Masters head, showed his enthusiasm, calling the discovery one of the great moments of his career. The Sistine ceiling is a cultural load-bearing wall. Finding another piece of its inception is like unearthing a spare chapter of the Bible.
The drawing itself carries all the hallmarks of Michelangelo’s obsessive approach: restless contour lines, anatomical anxiety, that unmistakable push-and-pull of force and refinement. Dated around 1511–12, it aligns with his preparation for the second half of the ceiling, including the Libyan Sibyl—a figure twisted with such theatrical torque that her feet practically do the talking. This particular foot, pressing down on its platform as though crushing the air beneath it, appears in a small cluster of related studies done in luminous red chalk.
What makes the story irresistible is the way it emerges. Damen receives countless online enquiries—most humdrum, some hopeful, a handful outright delusional. Yet this one image, framed next to another old drawing, pricked her instincts. The owner had inherited it from his grandmother, and the sheet had apparently travelled through the family since the late 1700s. But ancestry and authenticity aren’t the same thing. Damen flew out anyway.
Seeing it in person only sharpened her suspicions. Back in New York, months of research followed. Infrared photography revealed hidden studies on the reverse—black chalk notes consistent with Michelangelo’s workshop period. One clue led to another: stylistic parallels with a famous sheet at the Met; a copy at the Uffizi containing the same constellation of studies, plus the missing foot; and, crucially, a 16th-century inscription reading “Michelangelo Bona Roti,” identical to markings on verified works by the artist.
Six months later, the clincher: placing the newly surfaced drawing beside the Met sheet. Same hand. Same moment. Same project. A puzzle piece slipping neatly into place after half a millennium in hiding.
The provenance tied everything together—passing from Michelangelo’s circle to a 17th-century Italian collection, then into the hands of a Swiss diplomat in the 18th century, before quietly crossing the Atlantic and settling into family life on the West Coast, apparently unbothered by its own importance.
Damen calls it a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. She’s right. These things don’t happen often—not with Michelangelo, not with the Sistine Chapel, and certainly not with something as humble, as intimate, as a foot. But in the art world, the most unassuming things have a habit of blowing the roof clean off.
Top photo: Michelangelo, Study of a right foot, Preparatory for the Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine Ceiling, Red chalk, Inscribed ‘Michelangelo Bona Roti’ © Christie’s Images Ltd 2025