Source Michelangelo Models,Paul Lebrooy,
Creelman and Drummond, Vancouver, Canada,
1972, p.25


Vasari, living at the time of von Praun, is
known to have owned small Michelangelo
models and, indeed, clay sketches by
Michelangelo for the head and the arms of
"Cosmas" in the Medici Chapel were re-
garded by Vasari as invaluable gifts. The art
historian Christophe Theophile Murr (1733-
1811), the author of Bibliotheque de Peinture,
de Sculpture et de Gravure in 1770, and also
ofLeben des M.A. Buonarroti, stated in his
511 page catalogue of the von Praun Collec-
tion Description du Cabinet de Monsieur Paul
de Praun a Nuremberg, 1797, that von Praun
acquired in Bologna at the end of the six-
teenth century, the remainder of the famous
Vasari Collection of drawings which Vasari's
nephew and heir, Chevalier George Vasari,
had brought from Rome. Murr was of the
opinion that from the Vasari Collection
many drawings by Michelangelo and
Raphael and by other great masters found
their way into the collection of Paul von
Praun.

A small forty-two page volume titled
"Michelangelos Tonmodelle aus der
HaehneVschen Sammlung", published pri-
vately after Henry Thode's and Professor

Lehnert's writings on the Haehnel Collection
in 1913, makes an interesting but very pos-
sibly unverifiable statement:

"Most important, Vasari, the author, painter
and architect, kept a catalogue which was pub-
lished after his death, in which there is a notation
saying that the models which Vasari had left
behind were bought from his heir by Paul de
Praun in Bologna in 1598."



It should be noted that the above extract
does not state that those models purchased
by von Praun from Vasari's heir were nec-
e0ssarily by Michelangelo. The von Praun
0Collection contained models by many sculp-
tors besides Michelangelo.

Von Praun was throughout most of his
lifetime surrounded by a close circle of ac-
claimed art connoisseurs and famous artists
of the day, especially during the periods of
his life that were spent in Bologna and in
Nuremberg. In his youth he was the close
friend of Springli of Zurich and of the en-
graver and woodcarver Jodocus Amman, as
well as of the goldsmiths Albert and Chris-
tophjamnitzer. During his lifetime he was
an intimate friend of Lucas van Valkenborch,
Peter Schaubruck, Giovanni da Bologna,
Denis Calvaert, Annibale Carracci, and many
other artists. The advice of Praun's artist
friends and their associates was at all times
available to him in order that he might in-
crease his collection of outstanding art, ob-
tained for the most part in Italy and in
Germany.