The torment of saint anthony

Kimbell Buys Michelangelo's The Torment of Saint Anthony

Kimbell Art art museum acquires the earliest known work of Michelangelo Antonioni The Torment of Saint Anthony.

Michelangelo’s painting of The Torment of Saint Anthony, described by his earliest biographers, has been acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas. Its purchase was announced Wednesday, May 13, 2009, by the Kimbell’s newly appointed director, Dr. Eric McCauley Lee. Executed in oil and tempera on a wooden panel, The Torment of Saint Anthony is the first painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564) to enter an American collection, and one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to come from his hand. The others are the Doni Tondo in Florence’s Uffizi Gallery and two unfinished paintings in London’s National Gallery, The Manchester Madonna and The Entombment.

Dr. Lee commented, “The acquisition of this rediscovered work from the very beginnings of Michelangelo’s artistic career offers an extraordinary opportunity to advance the understanding of European art.” Kay Fortson, president of the Kimbell Art Foundation’s board of directors, said, “This is an outstanding acquisition for the Kimbell. Michelangelo’s rare painting will be a beacon in the Museum’s already distinguished collection.”
Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth buys early Michelangelo painting

By GAILE ROBINSON / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News

FORT WORTH – In an extraordinary coup, the Kimbell Art Museum has acquired the earliest known painting by Michelangelo, one of only four easel paintings by the Renaissance master in the world.

The Kimbell's purchase, The Torment of Saint Anthony (1487-88), will be the only painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) to enter the permanent collection of a U.S. museum. Two of the other paintings are in London's National Gallery, and a third is in Florence's Uffizi Gallery.

The 18 ½ -by-131/4-inch oil-and-tempera on poplar panel will go on view at the museum this fall.

The opportunity to buy the work, for an undisclosed sum, came just weeks after the arrival of newly appointed Kimbell director Eric McCauley Lee earlier this year. He was having lunch one day with former Kimbell director Edmund "Ted" Pillsbury, who had heard about the painting, which was being studied in the conservation studios at the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

Is this painting of Saint Anthony tormented by demons the earliest extant painting by Michelangelo? Keith Christiansen, a curator of European painting at the Metropolitan Museum in New York is convinced the work is indeed a Michelangelo. The painting in question would have been painted when Michelangelo was a young (12 0r 13 year old) apprentice in the established Florentine painter Ghirlandaio's workshop. Michelangelo's earliest biographers including Giorgio Vasari and his former student Ascanio Condivi describe how a young Michelangelo was inspired by an engraving of Saint Anthony tormented by demons by the 15th century German artist Martin Schongauer. Michelangelo freely created his own version of the composition providing richly invented colors and a Tuscan landscape in which the action takes place. Carol Vogel in the New York times describes how Met curator Christansen's detailed examination of the painting convinced him that the work was Michelangelo's earliest known painting: