Italian art historians have announced this week that the first known self-portrait of Michelangelo might have been discovered in the form of a unique marble relief belonging to a private collection. This remarkable piece is a circular white marble tondo some 14 inches in diameter depicting, in three-quarter profile a bearded head, carved with precision and delicacy, and identified by the late James Beck, of Columbia University as a possible work by Michelangelo back in 1999. Beck's written Three Worlds of Michelangelo dubbed this piece, dated to about 1545, a possible Michelangelo self portrait, because in thosed 16th century days 70-year-old Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) had already completed many masterpieces. Well known examples …show more content…
Some believe that the portrait was conceived by Michelangelo when he worked on the tomb of Pope Julius II, who in 1505, commissioned to execute this work of massive proportions, and expected to feature the greatest statuary ever seen. It was intended that forty life-size statues be displayed on a three-level structure, but the tomb was never finished as Julius decided to suspend the work, assigning Michelangelo to painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling instead. The artist still worked on the tomb project intermittently, however for 40 years, even after the pope's death, when Julius was, in 1513, entombed in St. Peter's Basilica. The initial grand project just got progressively downscaled, the artist much anguished by this, before finally being set up as a wall tomb in San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, incorporating Michelangelo sculptures, including the imposing Moses figure, the carved tondo perhaps created originally to help tomb