Not currently on view
In the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland · as of August 2026
FROM THE CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART’S CATALOG
Michelangelo was among the first artists in Europe to attend a human dissection and to adopt anatomical knowledge as a necessity for depicting the human figure. These drawings by Battista Franco reflect the increased—and slightly macabre—interest in the interior workings of the human body inspired in part by Michelangelo’s example. Here, the groupings of arm bones, though rendered accurately, are placed into decorative piles. The odd assembly vacillates between scientific study and a symbolic memento mori, or reminder of death.
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Half Figure of a Youth with Outstretched Left Arm and Bowed 
The Entombment
St. Jerome
The Entombment of Christ
Six Animals, including lions, a tiger, a leopard, a griffin,
Two Angels or Winged Genii Carrying Torches
Fortitude and Justice, an allegorical composition in round f
The Adoration of the Shepherds with angels overhead
Battista Franco (Italian, 1498?–1561) — Half-Length Skeleton
Circle of Hans Baldung Grien — The Lamentation of Christ
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475–1564) — Figure Studie
Peter Paul Rubens (Flemish, 1577–1640) — Venus Disarming Mar
Domenico del Barbiere — Two Flayed Men and Their Skeletons
Seu Family|Manaku
Battista Franco — Skull in Profile
Crucifixion with the Two Thieves
Jacopo Ligozzi — The Descent from the Cross with Saint Franc
Anonymous, Netherlandish, 16th century — Apollo, Marsyas, an
Paolo Veronese (Paolo Caliari) — Sketches for Compositions a
Lucas van Leyden — St. Jerome in his Study