Priced at 17 million San Juanito de Miguel Angel to expose the Prado

The only sculpture by Michelangelo preserved in Spain, work in marble owned by the Ducal House Foundation of Medina-Seville and from the Chapel of the Saviour Ubeda, will be exhibited in the hall 47 building Villanueva del Prado from March 31 to June 28 within the framework of the program "The Guest Work", sponsored by the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado. The piece was virtually destroyed at the beginning of the Civil War and has been reduced to fragments until his recent and complex intervention in the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (Restoration Center) in Florence.

Having regard to the request of the Prado Museum, the State has decided to cover 17 million euros insurance this sculpture for the purposes of its exhibition as a guest book. "San Juanito" Michelangelo "is exihibirá between April 7, 2015 and June 28, 2015. The State undertakes to compensate for the destruction, loss, theft or damage that may occur to this work until this value of 17 million euros.

Over a period of three months, the Prado Museum display in Room 47 of the building Villanueva, San Juan Bautista child, the only sculpture of Michelangelo preserved in Spain. This is an early work of the artist, before the Mercy of the Vatican and the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, which was donated by the Duke of Florence, Cosimo I de 'Medici, Francisco de los Cobos, secretary of Emperor Charles V , who sent it to Spain, to his villa in Sabiote, passing enrich, after his death, the burial chapel he built in his home town of Ubeda.

Exposed from the sixteenth century in the chapel of Salvador de Ubeda in Jaén, was recovered by the artistic literature in 1930 as a work by Michelangelo. A few years later, in 1936, at the beginning of the Civil War, was severely damaged that destroyed much of it being reduced to fragments.

The Ducal House of Medina-Sevilla Foundation, which owns the piece, commissioned its restoration to the Opificio delle Pietre Dure (Restoration Center) of Florence, a process that began in 1994. After the delicate and complex intervention, made with the latest technology Laser volumetric 3-D reconstruction, and after his exhibition in Florence and Venice, San Juan Bautista child returns to Spain to be exposed in the Museo del Prado as part of its exhibition program "Invited work" before final transfer to your place of origin in Ubeda.

Restoration

In an act of vandalism committed at the beginning of the Civil War in July 1936, the sculpture was broken into pieces and his head was burned. Only fourteen fragments could be collected, equivalent to 40% of its original volume. The delicate and complex recovery project work started in 1994 at the Center for Restoration of Florence (Opificio delle Pietre Dure). Were used for this novel methods such as the use of lasers to clean the black and scorched surface of the head, or virtual 3-D reconstruction of the complete sculpture based on photographs taken shortly before its destruction. After installing the statue with original marble fragments, lost parts, made with fiberglass and then plastered, sung with tempera and sealed with wax and varnish were integrated. The sculpture recovered was presented to the Florentine public in 2013.

Source: Logopress