Buried and Sold as an Antique: 21-Year-Old Michelangelo’s Forged Sleeping Cupid
In 1496 a cardinal in Rome bought an ancient Roman sculpture: a marble of the infant Cupid asleep, for 200 ducats.
Its surface was rough and worn, as if it had lain in the ground for centuries. But it was no antique. It had been made in Florence only months before.
The sculptor was 21-year-old Michelangelo Buonarroti, the man who would go on to make the Pietà and David.
Making It Look Ancient
Michelangelo had lost his patron Lorenzo de’ Medici and work was scarce. Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici saw his sleeping Cupid and advised that, if it were made to look ancient, it would sell for far more in Rome.
Wealthy Roman collectors were obsessed with Greek and Roman sculpture, while new work by a living young sculptor, however skilled, fetched little. The Cupid was buried in acidic earth to take on the look of age. Accounts differ on whether Michelangelo did it himself or the dealer Baldassare del Milanese buried it in his vineyard.
A Cardinal Deceived
Through the dealer, the sculpture was sold to Cardinal Raffaele Riario. The cardinal paid 200 ducats; Michelangelo received 30 from the dealer.
Before long the cardinal realised he had been duped. He sent the banker Jacopo Galli to Florence to find the real author, and Michelangelo confessed.
The cardinal took his money back from the dealer and held nothing against Michelangelo. Instead, struck by a hand indistinguishable from the ancients, he invited him to Rome.
From Forgery to Pietà
Arriving in Rome in 1496, Michelangelo soon completed Bacchus, the god of wine. It was begun for Cardinal Riario, who in the end declined it; Galli bought it instead.
Two years later he signed the contract for the Pietà destined for St Peter’s. He was about 24 when it was finished.
The Sleeping Cupid itself does not survive. It passed through Cesare Borgia and Isabella d’Este in Mantua, travelled to England, and then the trail goes cold. The work that opened a genius’s path to fame is a forgery that no longer exists anywhere.
Sleeping Cupid (lost)
- Artist: Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564)
- Made: 1495–1496, Florence
- Sale: 1496, to Cardinal Raffaele Riario for 200 ducats (30 to the artist)
- Later owners: Cesare Borgia → Isabella d’Este → England; whereabouts now unknown
Sources: Atlas Obscura, The Daily Beast, Galleria Bazzanti, Museum of Hoaxes, Wikipedia
Photos: Reptonix free Creative Commons lice, CC BY 3.0 / Anonymous (Category:Roman Empire)Un, Public domain / user:Lalupa, Public domain / Yair Haklai, CC BY-SA 4.0 / Stanislav Traykov, CC BY 2.5 (Wikimedia Commons)