Restoration of
Michelangelo Buonarotti’s
Plaster Cast Reproductions
In preparation for the 2025 Statens Museum for Kunst
Michelangelo Exhibition
March 28, 2025 – August 31, 2025
Image: Plaster cast of the highest quality, Reclining male figure, so-called ’Day’ (tomb of Giuliano de’Medici), height 158 cm. KAS 112, 3, Beckett 1321. Original c. 1525–7, San Lorenzo, Sacrestia Nuova, Florence
About the Restoration Project
The Royal Cast Collection (KAS) includes 27 reproductions of Michelangelo’s sculptures. While a few were purchased for the Royal Danish Academy of Arts as early as the late eighteenth century, most were made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under the auspices of Master Brewer Carl Jacobsen for the nascent State Museum of Art, today SMK. All sculptures are finished in plaster and of the highest quality. No other cast collection in the world rivals it when it comes to Michelangelo. We hope the KAS collection of plaster cast sculptures will finally be seen by the world as one whole body of work.
Matthias Wivel, curator of the 2025 SMK Michelangelo Exhibition:
“An exhibition devoted to Michelangelo’s work in sculpture at an unprecedented level of scale and ambition. In recognition of the impossibility of ever gathering the originals, we will be drawing upon the unparalleled holdings of high-quality historical plaster casts in the Royal Danish Cast Collection, supplemented by a selection of new 3D-modelled and -printed facsimiles made in collaboration with Factum Arte in Madrid. The goal is to get as close as possible to a display of the complete sculptural works by Michelangelo."
Restoration Details
The plaster casts are in need of cleaning and repair. Cleaning plaster cast sculptures involves careful a delicate examination of the sculpture surface to determine which restoration method is best.
The Michelangelo sculptures will be surface cleaned using, where applicable, the following methods:
- Dry cleaning: suction, brushes, erasers and dry sponges
- Wet cleaning: Agar peeling gel, magnesium oxide, latex
- Structural repairs to the plaster including fills and stabilization
- Retouching of repaired areas
Group of approx. 25 Michelangelo Buonarotti plaster casts
Proposed working hours: 527
Employment/temporary staff: ≈ 4,5 mdr. (ca. 201.000 DKK / $28,875)
Materials: 15.000 DKK / $2,153.05
Total required funds: 216.000 DK / $31,028
Your donation will help us underwrite the restoration of Michelangelo Buonarotti’s Plaster Cast Sculptures and make this essential work possible.