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Study of a Flayed Torso (verso)
About the Artwork
In order to understand the movement of the human form, Michelangelo was known to have studied flayed bodies (cadavers with their skin removed) and in fact made several drawings of them. Bartolommeo da Arezzo—a follower of Michelangelo working a generation after the master—became obsessed with studying corpses, even stealing them from local graveyards. On one side of this sheet (verso), he drew a flayed torso.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in brown ink: demano de bar / tolomeo aretino / 1554 ; by artist(?), upper right, in brown ink: [5?] [over- and underlined] ; by artist(?), lower left, in brown ink: N° 9 ; by artist(?), lower right, in brown ink: [N. 15?]
Exhibition history
Master/Apprentice: Imitation and Inspiration in the Renaissance. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 13, 2019-February 23, 2020).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Bartolommeo da Arezzo (Italian, active about 1550–80)
- Date
- 1554
- Medium
- pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash over traces of black chalk; incised
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 40.5 x 27.6 cm (15 15/16 x 10 7/8 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- L. E. Holden Fund
- Accession no.
- 1975.26.b
More by Bartolommeo da Arezzo in museum collections
Two Studies of a Flayed Man (recto) Study of a Flayed Torso (verso)
Bartolommeo da Arezzo1554 · Drawing
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011556
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