Italy: Michelangelo's "Pieta Prototype" Unveiled in Rome: "A tiny winged Cupid is one of the key clues to identifying a long-lost statue as the work of Michelangelo, art historians believe.
Experts are convinced that a recently discovered terracotta statue of the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus after his Crucifixion was the model for Michelangelo's renowned 'Pieta' sculpture in marble, today in St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.
They say Michelangelo created the small, 30cm-high statue 500 years ago in order to convince a wealthy French cardinal to commission him to produce the much larger work, which he completed in 1499.
The model consists of three figures - Christ, the Virgin Mary and a small Cupid, whose head and wings are broken off and missing.
Cupids were pagan in origin - based on the Greek god of love Eros and also represented in Roman mythology.
'The only artist with the nerve, the colossal chutzpah, to put a pagan figure in a statute that was destined for the Vatican, was Michelangelo,' Roy Doliner, an art historian who is convinced the terracotta model was created by the Renaissance master, told The Daily Telegraph."
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