Michelangelo's Pietà, detail of Mary

"© 1982 MMA"—Copyright inscription by the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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This 3D capture was made from a marble resin cast molded directly from the Pietà. A label on the back of the cast reads:

"This facsimile copy is authorized by the Vatican Museums. It is produced under the supervision of the Reproduction Studio of the Metropolitan Museum of Art from direct impression molds of the original sculpture developed by the Department of Scientific Research of the Vatican Museums."

I imagine the Vatican and Met took a great deal of care making these molds and casts, and as a good cast is extremely accurate, this model may be the most faithful digital copy of Mary available to the public until the Vatican freely publishes their own 3D survey of the Pietà--if and when that ever happens.

The copyright notice the Met scrawled into the back would be funny if it weren't so problematic. Michelangelo's work is so clearly in the public domain that it's hard to imagine what legitimate purpose the Met could have had in mind.

No one has a copyright in Michelangelo's work, and IP is screwed up enough without people who should know better making nonsensical or careless claims that chill and thwart the free use of public domain works.

- Download the model: thingiverse.com/thing:196060/#files
- Web-embeddable 3D visualization: http://skfb.ly/Cw86
- All my 3D captures: thingiverse.com/CosmoWenman/designs

—Cosmo Wenman
@CosmoWenman
cosmowenman.com
[email protected]

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I'd like to make casts of this piece in bronze and stainless steel. If you know anyone who'd like to buy one, please send them my way.

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This 3D capture was made with Project Memento and lightly edited with ZBrush and Blender. Thanks to Tatjana, Ronald, Mushogenshin, and Hiro for their help.

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