Arm Bones

Arm Bones — Battista Franco. early 1540s.

Medium: pen and brown ink with incised lines. Dimensions: Sheet: 11.8 x 36.7 cm (4 5/8 x 14 7/16 in.); Secondary Support: 11.8 x 36.7 cm (4 5/8 x 14 7/16 in.).

Collection record: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

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.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.