Did the Italian Government Get Duped by a Fake Michelangelo?
A wooden carving of Jesus on the cross by Michelangelo, which was presented to Pope Benedict XVI, exhibited at the Italian parliament, seen by thousands, and even may have landed in the National Gallery in Washington as a way of honoring President Barack Obama, may be a fake.
The allegedly fraudulent work, which was purchase for about 3 million pounds from an art dealer in Turin, was presented by the dealer as an authentic Michelangelo. However, according to this article in The Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/
italy/6833354/Michelangelo-figure-may-be-a-fake.html, multiple experts are not fooled.
Perhaps the strongest statement the Telegraph article was from Tomaso Montanari, an art history professor at Naples University, who said it was "clearly not" a Michelangelo.
