Michelangelo’s “The Torment of Saint Anthony” – in Ft. Worth

Ivory tower art comes to the people

"The Torment of Saint Anthony" (AP Photo/The Kimbell)

I enjoy fine art for a variety of reasons. I can appreciate technique and an artist’s prodigious technical skill, but more than anything else, I want to be transported. I want to walk into a painting and live that moment for as long as the temporal window in space/time will allow (I’m a parent; window’s gotta close sometime).

I found some exciting news about one of humanity’s greatest artists, Michelangelo. It seems that what experts believe to be his earliest work, “The Torment of Saint Anthony,” has been purchased by an art museum for display. Where is it? The Louvre? The Guggenheim? Try the Kimbell Art Museum. They must have paid more than an installment loan’s worth of cash; they may have even placed themselves in need of debt relief.

But it’s Michelangelo

The Associated Press reports that the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth will display this rare Michelangelo painting. The Kimbell did not disclose the price they paid for “The Torment of Saint Anthony,” a 15th-century oil and tempera painting on wood panel. The work depicts demons struggling to hurl the ascending Saint Anthony from infinite sky to a special prison they have no doubt prepared for him in Tartarus (or a similar mythological realm; call it Hades, Hell, Purgatory or what you will). Michelangelo is believed to have painted this when he was 12 or 13 years old.

Only four of Michelangelo’s works — including “The Torment of Saint Anthony“– are known to still exist. Two of those are unfinished. His most famous expression of art is the fresco painted on the wall and ceiling of Rome’s Sistine Chapel.

A great rediscovery

“This is one of the greatest rediscoveries in the history of art,” said Eric Lee, the Kimbell’s director. “The evidence could not be stronger. It’s like a detective story, like a mystery, and it involves one of the greatest artists of all time.”

According to Lee, “The Torment of Saint Anthony” was displayed as late as 1874 in Paris. However, questions of authenticity were raised after a London family acquired the painting at the beginning of the 20th century. Since then, it had been kept privately.

Fast forward to the summer of 2008. An art dealer bought the work at a Sotheby’s auction for about $2 million. There had been doubts as to the painting’s authenticity because a similar work exists from the 17th century. After careful cleaning and X-Ray and infrared scans, the brushwork detail proved to experts that it was indeed a Michelangelo.

But the Kimbell bought it first

Michelangelo Buonarotti

The dealer’s original intention was to have it displayed at the New York Metropolitan Museum, and that is where it will be through summer 2009. It will reach the Kimbell in the fall.  Lee has said he may loan “The Torment of Saint Anthony” to other museums later for traveling shows.

Michelangelo’s piece has previously been known as “The Temptation of Saint Anthony” because the neophyte artist was inspired by an engraving of that title. But after the Kimbell acquired the work, Lee decided to change the name, as the engraving actually depicts a different scene.

Whatever the case, “The Torment of Saint Anthony” is a coup for the Kimbell, for Ft. Worth and art fans who don’t want to have to take out installment loans or go into debt relief counseling so they can go to see one of the world’s great works of art.

“This could not be a rarer object,” Lee said. “That’s why this is such an extraordinary opportunity.”

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