Titled The Seated Man, the drawing belongs to an anonymous British collector who bought it from a French auction house in 1989, when it was attributed to an unidentified artist. However, after another art historian, Miles Chappell, suggested it may be a Michelangelo, the collector contacted Clifford.

The work is currently featured in an exhibition of 16th-century Italian drawings at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, “Triumph of the Body: Michelangelo and Sixteenth-Century Italian Draughtsmanship.” In the accompanying catalogue, leading Michelangelo scholar Paul Joannides signs off on Clifford’s attribution, and the exhibition’s curator, Zoltán Kárpáti, notes how fortunate it is the drawing was spared by Michelangelo, who was known to destroy his drawings. As art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote: “Just before his death, [Michelangelo] burned a large number of his own drawings, sketches and cartoons to prevent anyone from seeing the labours he endured [. . .] for fear that he might seem less than perfect.”