Thinking Aloud

Carmen C. Bambach

February 20, 2013

3 min. watch

“I can see the humanity in a way, the figure breathing.”

Curator Carmen Bambach on Michelangelo’s Studies for the Libyan Sibyl from the early 1500s.

Contributors

Carmen C. Bambach
Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints

Photography by Paul Lachenauer

Photo of Sistine Chapel ceiling by Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY

Art Mentioned

Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso), Michelangelo Buonarroti Italian, Red chalk, with small accents of white chalk on the left shoulder of the figure in the main study (recto); soft black chalk, or less probably charcoal (verso) — Studies for the Libyan Sibyl (recto); Studies for the Libyan Sibyl and a small Sketch for a Seated Figure (verso)
Michelangelo Buonarroti
ca. 1510–11

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