46cm x 90cm Oil on canvas board.
Based on Michelangelos sculpture at Florence. Phillip Carrero.
To make this statue, Michelangelo was given a piece of flawed marble that another artist had started but given up. Indeed, he was asked to finish a sculpture of the David originally blocked out in 1464. It’s documented that on Sept 9, 1501, he apparently knocked off a “certain knot” that had been on the David’s chest.
Though Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was Michelangelo, only twenty-six years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved the commission. On 16 August 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging new task.
The artwork is much different from the previous statues made by other famous artists such as Verrocchio and Donatello. David by Michelangelo depicted the young David before he went on to his battle with the mighty Goliath. Hence, the figure’s face appeared tense and set for combat instead of victorious because of his foe’s defeat.
In June 1504, Davidwas installed next to the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, replacing Donatello’s bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes, which embodied a comparable theme of heroic resistance. It took four days to move the statue the half mile from Michelangelo’s workshop into the Piazza della Signoria