Michelangelo David Marble Block

It is a 14 0 ft marble statue depicting the biblical hero david represented as a standing male nude.

Michelangelo david marble block. A little history of michelangelo s david the story of the statue of david begins with a stone block brought to florence by boat across the mediterranean and arno from the fantiscritti quarry in carrara this block was stored for years waiting to be carved. At that time the marble was said to have had a flaw in it and the project was abandoned. A document from 1501 refers to a massive barely begun statue a certain man of marble named david badly blocked out and laid on its back in the courtyard. David is a 5 17 metre 17 0 ft marble statue of the biblical figure david a favoured subject in the art of florence.

Michelangelo s david is massive at 17 feet tall and more than 12 000 pounds yet it is sculpted from a single block of white marble. Divine draftsman and designer are three sculptures the artist carved in marble from carrara including the monumental unfinished apollo david. 2 the block of marble that michelangelo used to carve david had been worked on more than 50 years earlier by donatello. Among the many treasures that will be on view in michelangelo.

David is a masterpiece of renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the italian artist michelangelo. Originally commissioned by the opera del duomo for the cathedral of florence it was meant to be one of a series of large statues to be positioned in the niches of the cathedral s tribunes way up at about 80mt from the ground. For michelangelo his statue of david proved to be a defining moment in his artistic career. It took four years for michelangelo to carve the famous sculpture out of an 18 foot tall marble block that had been damaged by another sculptor during the 1460s.

When michelangelo received his commission in 1501 he was presented with the challenge of using the block which had already been worked upon to some degree. Extremely hands on by nature michelangelo became involved quite literally at the ground level as he planned his sculptures. The story begins with a commission for a statue of david dating as far back as 1466 when the artist agostino di duccio began work on the marble block.