MERCREDI 19 NOVEMBRE 2025 
Millon Achieves World-Record €4.1 Million for a Daniele da Volterra Drawing at Drouot
O n 19 November at Drouot, Millon achieved a world-record price for a drawing by Daniele da Volterra (1509–1566) with Head of a Young Man Turning to the Right, which realised €4.1 million, far surpassing its €400,000 - 500,000 estimate.This spectacular result confirms the historical and artistic significance of the sheet.
This sheet is one of the very rare preparatory drawings for the Assumption of the Virgin fresco (completed circa 1553) in the Della Rovere Chapel at the church of Trinità dei Monti in Rome. It depicts the head of a young apostle at the centre of the composition, turned to the right. Only two other studies of heads for the same fresco are known: one for the apostle on the right - a portrait of Michelangelo - and one for the apostle on the left, now in the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin.
The monumental fresco, commissioned in 1548 by Lucrezia Della Rovere, niece of Pope Julius II, shows the Virgin rising to Heaven, surrounded by the apostles, and forms part of a larger narrative cycle devoted to the Life of the Virgin. Volterra also included a portrait of Michelangelo: the apostle dressed in red on the right side of the scene, gazing at the viewer, for which a preparatory study survives at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem.
The emergence of this drawing on the market is an extraordinary event. Almost all of Volterra’s preparatory sheets are in public collections, making their appearance for sale extremely rare. This sheet still bears tangible traces of its use in the 16th century: perforations made with a point and needle to transfer the contours onto the full-scale fresco cartoon, which was probably destroyed after the fresco’s execution.
A devoted pupil of Michelangelo, Volterra inherited both his master’s anatomical precision and expressive force. His career in Rome, his involvement in the Deposition of the Cross (1545), and his later nickname “Il Braghettone” for covering the nudes in the Sistine Chapel do not overshadow the power of his drawing, with its vigorous, monumental figures.
The emergence of this drawing on the market is an extraordinary event. Almost all of Volterra’s preparatory sheets are in public collections, making their appearance for sale extremely rare. This sheet still bears tangible traces of its use in the 16th century: perforations made with a point and needle to transfer the contours onto the full-scale fresco cartoon, which was probably destroyed after the fresco’s execution.
A devoted pupil of Michelangelo, Volterra inherited both his master’s anatomical precision and expressive force. His career in Rome, his involvement in the Deposition of the Cross (1545), and his later nickname “Il Braghettone” for covering the nudes in the Sistine Chapel do not overshadow the power of his drawing, with its vigorous, monumental figures.
