This is a plaster mask I’m touching up. I made a reconstruction of the head of Michelangelo based on studying the bronze head in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. They very kindly entrusted it to me in a quiet private space so I could study it.
The bronze head was created by combining a death mask with fairly loose modelling of the remainder of the skull, hair and ears.
I gazed at the head for a long time, then I drew the piece. I took measurements using white-gloved hands and wooden callipers, then I drew it again and took photographs, and drew it again. I spent several weeks reconstructing it, keeping close to the original but changing a few details.
I didn’t like how Daniele had treated Michelangelo’s eyes, they were perfunctorily modelled. The ears were also out of alignment. If Michelangelo’s ears had been placed as da Volterra placed them, his jaw would have been out of alignment. It wasn’t. Michelangelo had his nose broken in a fight as a boy, but his jaw was in the right position and plane.
Michelangelo said himself of da Volterra that his work looked good enough from a distance, but didn’t bear close inspection.
I just wanted to remove the distractions of the eyes and ears, and work out what he actually looked like.
