Skeleton
Battista Franco (Italian, c. 1510–1561)
early 1540s
Medium
pen and brown ink; incised
Dimensions
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Classification
Drawing
Department
Drawings
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art
Credit
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Claude Cassirer
Accession Number
1964.380
Tags
male
About this artwork
Michelangelo was among the first artists in Europe to attend a human dissection and to adopt anatomical knowledge as a necessity for depicting the human figure. These drawings of anatomically accurate skeletons by Battista Franco reflect the increased—and slightly macabre—interest in the interior workings of the human body inspired in part by Michelangelo’s example.