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ROME — Is it or isn’t it a Michelangelo? That is the question being pondered by art experts after the Italian state spent 3.3 million euros, or $4.2 million, last year to buy a small wooden crucifix attributed to that Renaissance genius. Works by Michelangelo don’t come up for sale often, but the occasional drawing has nabbed as much as $20 million at auction. By comparison, the linden wood crucifix, which was sold by the Turin antiques dealer Giancarlo Gallino, is a bargain. But there’s the rub. If it isn’t a Michelangelo, as some critics charge, then the state may have squandered its dwindling resources to buy a minor work — albeit an attractive one — in the middle of an economic crisis, when more than one billion euros have been cut from the Culture Ministry’s projected budget for the next three years. (The New York Times)
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