[Facsimiles of Original Drawings of the Frescoes by Michael Angelo on the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel] (Engraved ... by J. Linnell .)

The work has no title-page or title-plate. Our title is that given to the work by A.T. Story in his The Life Of John Linnell (2 v., 1892). The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography refers to it as Michelangelo's Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Publication-dates are carried by several plates: Feb. 1. 1833; Feb. 1833; Feb. 1834; 1835; Jan 1835; Feb 1835; but Story writes that the work was published in six parts, the first being issued on 1 April 1833 and the last in February 1837.

The plates show the frescoes painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican Palace in Rome. These depict nine episodes in the narrative of the Biblical book of Genesis - from the creation of the world to the life of Noah - supported by images of prophets and sybils who point to the salvation-history that would culminate in the advent of Christ. One plate shows an overview of the ceiling; the rest show details. They are mezzotints of drawings in Samuel Rogers's collection, which Linnell believed to be Michelangelo's original working drawings. (Story mentions also a separate set of six copies by Linnell of old line engravings of six figures of the Sistine ceiling, made in 1828.)