Thanks Bill, that's very interesting!

The link doesn't give much in the way of detail to support the claim, so a more thorough response will have to await the report and the "evidence."

But the assertion that Michelangelo forged the Laocoon strikes me as preposterous. The Laocoon found at Nero's Domus Aurea in the early 1500s, carved from three blocks, has long been considered to be a Roman copy (not a forgery) from the Greek original described by Pliny as being sculpted from a single block.

Michelangelo's earlier work -- his David for example -- had followed the more stately classical form represented by the Belvedere Apollo. Not until after the Laocoon was discovered did Michelangelo's style shift toward the dramatic twisted torsos, beginning with the Doni Tondo and continued with Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night, etc.

Therefore, for the Laocoon to have been Michelangelo's forgery, he would have had to decide to make a breakthrough in style with a piece that he would not take credit for creating, and only thereafter have his style shift toward his own forgery.

The examples in the website of Michelangelo's other "forgeries" are weak. As a young teen, and before he had achieved any fame, he made a marble fawn and was convinced by a dealer that it could sold it as a Roman antique if he "aged" it. Michelangelo later admitted that he had made the sculpture. He also copied and aged drawings of his first teacher, Ghirlandaio, but only to demonstrate his talent and not for profit.

Michelangelo hardly was one to shy away from taking credit for his work. After all, he chisled his name into the front of the Pieta when he overheard an admirer attribute the work to another artist. For the Laocoon to be Michelangelo's forgery, he would have had to kept his pride swallowed for the next fifty years of his life and never have revealed the secret. And his ego would have been overridden for what purpose?

Beyond his pride, Michelangelo was constantly struggling with finances, and yet he never claimed authorship of such a valuable work? Even if he was better off financially than he let on, his father and brothers were regularly hounding him for money. Why deny authorship, when revealing it would have enhanced his fortune as well as his fame?

We'll have to wait until April 6, to see if the claim can hold water.

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...Not until after the Laocoon was discovered did Michelangelo's style shift toward the dramatic twisted torsos, beginning with the Doni Tondo and continued with Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night, etc.

Therefore, for the Laocoon to have been Michelangelo's forgery, he would have had to decide to make a breakthrough in style with a piece that he would not take credit for creating, and only thereafter have his style shift toward his own forgery.

PER BEING ALERTED TO CATTERSON’S COMPLAINT TO SLOWTALK THAT ENHEDUANNA IS CLAIMING OWNERSHIP OF THESE OBSERVATIONS: THESE ARE NOT ENHEDUANNA’S OBSERVATIONS.

I disagree. There is a different breakthrough evident. The problem of stability in the Rome Pietá (1499) is solved in a fashion identical to that in the Laocoön (discovered 1506). They both have disproportionately expansive laps. THIS COMES FROM CATTERSON'S TALK.

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Beyond his pride, Michelangelo was constantly struggling with finances, and yet he never claimed authorship of such a valuable work? Even if he was better off financially than he let on, his father and brothers were regularly hounding him for money. Why deny authorship, when revealing it would have enhanced his fortune as well as his fame?

There is reason to believe otherwise. I suggest reading The Riches of Michelangelo by Rab Hatfield. Hatfield presents convincing evidence that Michelangelo was what we would call a "wealthy miser," and extremely deceptive in his accounting practices. In addition, forgers rarely admit their work, except when caught. One can imagine that admitting to having deceived the Vatican would have had dire consequences. The time-frame for a forgery to have been perpetrated is present in Michelangelo's biography as we understand it.

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We'll have to wait until April 6, to see if the claim can hold water.

I was at Catterson's lecture last night. Her argument was outrageous and entertaining, and supported by very deft deployment of digital video. The lecture itself was neither conclusive nor completely convincing (both Leo Steinberg and Richard Brilliant were skeptical, if not highly irritated), but it did present many interesting problems. Why, for instance, is there a drawing of Laocoön's head on the wall in the basement of Michelangelo's San Lorenzo workshop, a space otherwise filled with drawings by students emulating their master's historically identified work?

Michelangelo may not have been Agesander, Polydorus and Athenodorus of Rhodes, but weaving conspiracy into history is often compelling. The Buonarroti Code, anyone?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Enheduanna,

Bill according to what I've read the pope asked Michanangelo to go look at the Laocoon which discovered buried in a farmers field.Why would he take the time to bury it and wouldn't it be obvious it was done recently? Forgive me but is this on display somewhere in the Vatican now? RR

How would he have arranged for it to be buried and then discovered by the farmer? OK maybe he knew the farmer but how would have done the statue without anyone knowing it,then transported it to the site then buried it,all without being detected?
The marble faking is probably the easiest part, unless you take samples to the lab etc it would be hard to verify.I should think that the hardest part would be faking the sculpting so as not to be obviously the work of Michanangelo himself.
What would the point be of the fake? This work would have taken at least a year,where would he have done it?,in the years previously he was working on the Sistine and the pope was anxious for him to complete the work.Is there a whole year plus of time unaccounted for?I doubt it.Also it seems like Michangelo would get more acclaim for producing the work himself then finding an ancient statue.Also Pope julius would have to be in on the scam.
He was the one that directed Michangelo to go check the statue out.Why would he have paid this farmer a fortune?,according to what I am reading in the Pope's ceiling a sum of 500 gold florins a year for life,it seems like he would be paying Michangelo. RR

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How would he have arranged for it to be buried and then discovered by the farmer?

PER BEING ALERTED TO CATTERSON’S COMPLAINT TO SLOWTALK THAT ENHEDUANNA IS CLAIMING OWNERSHIP OF THESE OBSERVATIONS: THESE ARE NOT ENHEDUANNA’S OBSERVATIONS.
The Laocoön is in seven pieces; it could be transported. The joins are difficult to notice. Pliny could have missed them as well, if you accept the statue as Hellenic, not Roman or the work of M.

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OK maybe he knew the farmer but how would have done the statue without anyone knowing it,then transported it to the site then buried it, all without being detected?

Catterson mapped out a timeline of M's activities, including marble purchases, that showed both sufficient time and a lot of unaccounted-for marble. I suggest reading more about other art forgeries--like the Etruscan terracotta warriors and (possibly) the Getty Kouros. Forgeries of Ancient Sculpture in Marble: Creation & Detection (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 1961) is useful. It would probably have been even easier to "plant" such an object before electricity and modern communications.

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The marble faking is probably the easiest part, unless you take samples to the lab etc it would be hard to verify.

I should think that the hardest part would be faking the sculpting so as not to be obviously the work of Michanangelo himself.

From the perspective of a mammalian biped, all stone is very old. There is no "carbon dating" for minerals. No lab for such dating yet exists. It's not like the Shroud of Turin. Think about it: marble 2,000 years ago would be the same as marble 500 years ago, or 100,000 years ago.

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I should think that the hardest part would be faking the sculpting so as not to be obviously the work of Michanangelo himself.

The entire intention of forgery is for the work to appear to have been made by someone else. The hand of the real creator is meant to be obscured. To think that Michelangelo's talent would be insufficient to mask his artistic "tells" is a very modest assessment of Michelangelo.

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What would the point be of the fake?

The Laocoön was the "holy grail" of antique sculpture. Check Pliny's quote. There were interpretations/copies of it before 14 January 1506.

PER BEING ALERTED TO CATTERSON’S COMPLAINT TO SLOWTALK THAT ENHEDUANNA IS CLAIMING OWNERSHIP OF THESE OBSERVATIONS: THESE ARE NOT ENHEDUANNA’S OBSERVATIONS.

Filippino Lippi painted a scene of Laocoön's death @1490 (now very worn) for Lorenzo the Magnificent's villa at Poggio a Caiano. The villa had been designed by Sangallo, the same person who was id'ed the Laocoön. 1488, a dealer/collector (we should have a word for these guys) offered to sell Lorenzo a putative "antique" that matched the desc. of the Laocoön, sans the high priest.

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This work would have taken at least a year,where would he have done it?,

Workshop, possibly S. Lorenzo.

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in the years previously he was working on the Sistine and the pope was anxious for him to complete the work.Is there a whole year plus of time unaccounted for?I doubt it.

PER BEING ALERTED TO CATTERSON’S COMPLAINT TO SLOWTALK THAT ENHEDUANNA IS CLAIMING OWNERSHIP OF THESE OBSERVATIONS: THESE ARE NOT ENHEDUANNA’S OBSERVATIONS.

Read more about him. His comings and goings are pretty mysterious. In 1505, he spent eight months in the quarries of Carrara selecting marble for the tomb of by Pope Julius II. I don't quite understand that myself. Read about his bank account information before and after the "discovery," as well as his odd letters to his father, requesting that he destroy some drawings M had made (or send them to him for that purpose), and a letter to Giuliano da Sangallo, his "partner in crime" who was the person who actually "authenticated" the sculpture.

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Also it seems like Michangelo would get more acclaim for producing the work himself then finding an ancient statue.

Owning a "Michelangelo" would not have meant the same thing at all as it does today. At the time, he was not thought as being the transcendentally brilliant person we think of him today. He was an immensely talented--and immensely ambitious--young "art star," seeking the patronage of the Catholic Church. He had lots of competition. The Laocoön was a jewel in the Vatican's crown.

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Also Pope julius would have to be in on the scam.
He was the one that directed Michangelo to go check the statue out.Why would he have paid this farmer a fortune?,according to what I am reading in the Pope's ceiling a sum of 500 gold florins a year for life,it seems like he would be paying Michangelo.

I don't understand your point. Why would Julius have had to have been in on it? He was to be the buyer of a great antiquity. Is your conclusion derived from the idea that Michelangelo taking credit for the sculpture would have elevated his status in some way? If he had admitted the he made it, he would never have eaten lunch in Vatican City again. Finding the Laocoön just in time for the Vatican exhibition was a great coup, moreso than having a talented young artist "interpret" it. Italian financial and accounting practices were at least as convoluted then as they are now.

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it'll be fun to watch if it isn't a flash in the pan.

Agreed. Catterson has submitted her theory in book form to (I think) Princeton U. Press for publication. This may have some legs, even if it's ultimately untenable. While it's impossible logically to disprove such an assertion, the burden of proof should be on the conspiracy theorist.

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I would be curious to know if the white marble found in Carrara has a different mineral composition from similar stone that is native to Greece or Turkey. Exploring that component might be integral to debunking or validating the theory.

Excellent point. That is something Catterson admitted to not having investigated, at least at the time of the lecture.

So he made this massive statue with no one
seeing it,then transported it from florence?
How? I don't think it is so easy to fake another artists work even if you are a genius.
RR

Not only do those logistics defy credulity, but one has to question why an artist of Michelangelo's stature, maybe not transcendent to his contemporaries but certainly acknowledged as a superior talent, would invest massive effort and artistic will to celebrate anonymity.

Yes think of the EGO OF THE ARTIST.A genius certainly but an ego the size of Rome itself.How could he create a masterpiece and then sit back and say, "Oh, yes this is a classic ancient statue" I don't buy it. RR

I can understand forgery as a motive for the lesser known artist whose talent resides predominantly in artifice and technique. They are masters of the hand, not of the heart. Why would Michelangelo sink to this level when the very essence of the exercise would seem to run counter to the humanistic spiritualism empowering all his work? The primary reward of fleeting pleasure at having pulled a fast one does not seem worth the expense of this genius.

There's a site called culpa where students review their teachers at Columbia. This is Catterson's http://culpa.info/?process=browse&root=psearch&target=catterson

She's very popular relative to others.

She claims that Michelangelo's earlier "forging" of the sleeping cupid (1495) gives evidence of his tendency to such activity.

For what little this is worth, I recall Catterson mentioning during q&a that the "Sperlonga context" regarding the tool marks seems to indicate that the tools used on the sculpture were different from the sculpting tools Michelangelo used at that time.

The strontium analysis sounds as good an idea as any.

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So far I have not read anything that raises the level of the suggestion of Michelangelo's forgery above farcical.

The "breakthrough" in style toward highly muscled twisted torsos and away from stately elegance can hardly be compared with Mary's having an unusually large lap in the Pieta. (Moreover, the Laocoon's legs are large but not nearly as far outside "unnatural" as Mary's legs would have to be in supporting Jesus's body. Still, this is a non-point.)

There is no good reason to believe Michelangelo would have avoided a claim of ownership based on the suggestion that he was wealthier than he claimed. If he was a "wealthy miser" in his mind, and only "believed" he needed more money when objectively he did not, then in his mind he still would have valued additional income, maybe even moreso.

Forgers usually don't admit their forgery, because the have made money by concealing the secret. Here, Michelangelo gained nothing by the alleged forgery, neither money nor fame. Michelangelo would have had no motive to fake the Laocoon (unless we now want to add speculation upon speculation that he had a side deal with the farmer, as if his share could have been more lucrative than selling the statue as his own creation).

A previous poster asked, "Why, for instance, is there a drawing of Laocoon's head on the wall in the basement of Michelangelo's San Lorenzo workshop, a space otherwise filled with drawings by students emulating their master's historically identified work?" The better question would be, if the implication is that Michelangelo's students knew he created the Laocoon, how and why could all of them have kept such an incredible secret?

Another point speculated that disclosing the forgery to Julius II would have had bad consequences. Since we're now orbiting Mars, we should include Julius II in the conspiracy. Having Julius conspire with Michelangelo to fabricate the Laocoon, bury it and discover it makes more sense -- or rather, makes less nonsense -- than speculating that Michelangelo bought all that marble, labored for so long without being discovered, created what might be considered his greatest masterpiece, broke it and buried it above the ruins of the Domus Aurea without being detected, then pretended to find most of it, and thereafter dramatically changed his style to reflect the newly found work, all without payment or recognition.

It also seems suspicious that the professor did not bother to investigate whether the marble was more likely Greek or Roman, or where it was likely quarried. One would think that would have been a first step if the goal was serious scholarship rather than conspiracy-theory sensationalism.

No wonder the professor putting forward the forgery claim is popular. She's a comedian.