Michelangelo & Sebastiano – National Gallery to 25th June 2017

Sebastiano del Piombi, The Raising of Lazarus, 1519 (detail)

The exhibition explores the 25-year friendship and partnership between Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 – 1564) and Sebastiano del Piombi (1485 – 1547) which began in 1511 as Michelangelo was finishing his decoration of the Sistine Chapel.  (Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael are considered the three towering figures of Italian High Renaissance art.)

The exhibition includes their two great collaborations: the Pietà commissioned for the Church of S. Francesco in Viterbo (c.1512–16) and The Raising of Lazarus, painted for the Cathedral of Narbonne in France and also, on loan from the Church of San Vincenzo (Bassano Romano), Michelangelo’s The Risen Christ (1514–15), as well paintings, drawings, sculpture, and correspondence between the artists.