Model of a left hand, known as Michelangelo's Hand, terracotta, Italy, 16th century

Red surface. The model of the hand is cut off above the wrist. The fingers hold a piece of drapery or indeterminate object, the lower surface of which has been flattened to provide a base.

Acquired in Florence (Gherardini Collection)

The date when a clay model was fired can often be established by measuring the radiation in a sample of the terracotta by a method called thermo-luminescence (or TL) testing. The TL test carried out on this hand showed that it was made in the 16th century, probably about 1580. A similar model of a hand was recorded in a room near the Cappella dei Principi in San Lorenzo, Florence, where Michelangelo carved the marble figures, but it had disappeared by 1813. It is possible that this is the same model.

This hand is closely related to a well-known and long-celebrated drawing of a hand in the Louvre (Berenson, 1740) now generally considered as a deliberate imitation of Michael Angelo by Bartolommeo Passerotti. The present hand is tentatively identified by Steinmann ("La Mano di Michelangelo", in Studien aus Kunst und Geschichte Friedrich Schneider zum siebzigsten Geburtstage gewidmet, Freiburg, 1906, pp. 79-81) with the hand described by Gaburri, and is ascribed by him, on insufficient grounds, to Tribolo. The attribution of the terracotta to Michelangelo is rejected by Thode (Michelangelo, vi, Berlin, 1913, p. 283, No. 4101), who compares it with the supposed model for the right hand of the Moses formerly in the Hähnel collection (A.8-1938, No. 450, q.v.). Frey (Michelagniolo Buonarroti, i, Berlin, 1907, p. 245 n., ii, p. 22, No. 12 and n.) regards the hand as "ein spätes Machwerk...vielleicht zur Übung angefertigt, vielleicht auch eine Fälschung; wie ich glaube nach Passerottis Studien".

This terracotta model of a hand, known as 'Michelangelo's Hand' because it was formerly ascribed to him.

The date when a clay model was fired can often be established by measuring the radiation in a sample of the terracotta by a method called thermo-luminescence (or TL) testing. The TL test carried out on this hand showed that it was made in the 16th century, probably about 1580. A similar model of a hand was recorded in a room near the Cappella dei Principi in San Lorenzo, Florence, where Michelangelo carved the marble figures, but it had disappeared by 1813. It is possible that this is the same model.

The hand is cut off above the wrist.
The fingers hold a piece of drapery or indeterminate object, the lower surface of which has been flattened to provide a base.

4104-1854