STATE COLLEGE — The owner of State College Framing Company said he and his assistant recently got to work on a rare, priceless gem: an original Michelangelo drawing.
“It’s not an everyday thing, and certainly a very rare piece,” said John McQueary, SCFC’s owner.
He said that while they didn’t see the artist’s signature or get a look at the provenance, the man who brought it in said a major auction house believes it to be authentic, and at the very least the paper on which it’s drawn is from the era.
The owner’s name and location were withheld out of concerns for privacy and security.
Among the best-known artists from the Renaissance, Michelangelo lived from 1475 to 1564. Some of his most famous works include his 17-foot tall sculpture of David and his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the altar wall.
Three weeks ago a man brought the drawing into the shop, with the intake handled by Jeff Muthersbaugh. Both he and McQueary worked on the framing.
McQueary said he couldn’t be certain about the drawing’s authenticity, but the owner told him the paper was from the 15th or 16th century, which in itself was an experience.
“That’s just neat,” McQueary said. “You’re touching something that’s existed for 400 or 500 years.”
Some Michelangelo drawings have fetched millions of dollars, such as “The Risen Christ,” which sold at Christie’s for $12.3 million, a record for an old master drawing sold at auction, according to the New York Times.
The Los Angeles Times reported a Michelangelo drawing of the holy family sold for $6.27 million to the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, also a record in 1993.
McQueary said that while he took great care with the piece, he treated it like he would anything else brought into the shop, since the customer is already committing $150 to $400 to preserve the piece.
“Whether it’s your Van Gogh poster or your kid’s portrait, we try to treat everything with the utmost respect,” he said.
Anything the shop frames or repairs should be preserved for the next 200 or so years, and be able to be framed again without being damaged. State College Framing Company uses alpha cellulose paper or cotton rag, meant for the preservation of artwork. The glass and glaze has an ultraviolet light filter. The Michelangelo drawing was lightly hinged at the top with a minimum amount of rice paper, he said, which should pull off easily without damaging the artwork.
McQueary said the State College area has many valuable pieces of art.
“We’re fortunate here,” he said. “We have a nice museum in town. There are nice works of art. We have a university here and people travel all over the place.”
He said, for example, there are many valuable textile pieces around that would sell for five figures.
On July 20, SCFC worked on an original print by Ansel Adams, the popular American West photographer. And, the company recently worked on some mid-20th century Japanese woodblock prints, which weren’t outrageously valuable but demonstrated a traditional form of printmaking which comic book printing drew its process from.
