Lunette della Cappella Sistina - Roboamo, Abia

By 1511 Michelangelo had been up on the Sistine Chapel scaffolding for around three years, and this lunette belongs to the very last stretch of the job, worked at speed as he raced to finish. These arched panels over the windows hold the ancestors of Christ, the ordinary generations listed at the start of Matthew's Gospel, here two kings of Judah, Rehoboam and Abijah, named on the plaque between them. After the muscular prophets and sibyls on the ceiling above, the mood drops to something more human, figures who wait, slump and brood in the half-light. Michelangelo painted these late panels directly, with little preparatory drawing, which is part of why they feel so immediate.