FIRST NIGHT REVIEW

Michelangelo: The Last Decades review — spectacular, tender sketches

The British Museum’s new show features the great artist’s late-period drawings, but it could do without the lesser works by his collaborators

Michelangelo Buonarro’s Epifania, about 1550-53; study for the Last Judgement, about 1534-36; Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St John, about 1555-64
Michelangelo Buonarro’s Epifania, about 1550-53; study for the Last Judgement, about 1534-36; Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St John, about 1555-64
THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Laura Freeman
The Times

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How many masterpieces does it take to make an exhibition? At the National Gallery the answer is one. The Last Caravaggio is a single-room show of one stellar painting: The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula from the Gallerie d’Italia in Naples. Technically, it’s two. The National Gallery’s own late Caravaggio Salome with the Head of John the Baptist has joined it for the occasion. Two paintings — job, superbly, done.

How about a dozen drawings? Would you feel you had had your money’s worth? I ask because the British Museum’s Michelangelo: The Last Decades could have been a tenth of the size and captivated even more.

This is Michelangelo with time running out. When we meet him he is 59, an old Renaissance man. He is