title: [Les Mains de Michel-Ange : How eighteenth-century connoisseurs made sense of the artist's hand].
abstract: This article focuses on a drawing, regarded by 18(th)-century amateurs as a masterpiece by Michelangelo, and serves as a point of departure to illuminate the amateur's fascination with the artist's hand. This self-referential representation of the artistic process attracted much comment among connoisseurs. As virtually all amateurs had their say on the meaning of « les mains de Michel-Ange » the drawing sheds further light on the objects of desire which informed the amateur's discourse and the mediality such discourse needed in order to join word and image.
authors.affiliation: , Koserstrasse 20, D-14195, Berlin, Germany, joachim.rees@fu-berlin.de.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rees