Artibus et Historiae no. 37 (XIX)
1998, ISSN 0391-9064Up
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JAMES BECK - Connoisseurship: A Lost or a Found Art? The Example of a Michelangelo Attribution: 'The Fifth Avenue Cupid.'
The author, noting that attributional practices and requirements connected with Renaissance sculpture are less refined and less developed than those surrounding painting, has offered a series of steps that can be applied to the activity. He has used as a test of the methodology the so-called Fifth Avenue Cupid, a marble that has been recently re-attributed to Michelangelo, after its location in New York City had been determined. In 1968 Alessandro Parronchi had proposed that it was the work of Michelangelo, although at the time he had not personally seen sculpture, nor knew of its location. Application of the new attributional approach suggest that far from being an autograph Michelangelo, the object is a late nineteenth or early twentieth century forgery.