Excitement buzzed through the art world as two “lost” bronze statues of naked men riding panthers were finally identified by the Fitzwilliam Museum as original Michelangelo creations. The three-foot-high statues, which have been commonly referred to as “The Rothschild Bronzes” for a number of years, are the only surviving bronze sculptures by the famous Renaissance master.

The statues were once previously attributed to Michelangelo in the 19th century, but the theory was dismissed at an 1878 Paris exhibition. Since then, the sculptures have been credited to a variety of lesser-known artists, passing through a number of private collections. The nude bronzes went on display at the Royal Academy in 2012, prompting a re-evaluation of the artist attribution.

Paul Joannides, Emeritus Professor of Art History at the University of Cambridge, recognized the familiar shape of the statues in a small sketch by one of Michelangelo’s apprentices.  The match led experts to examine other comparisons, in which they found that the bronzes were “very similar” in style to Michelangelo’s works of 1500-1510. The student’s sketch is currently held in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier, France.

Michelangelo is known to have made at least two other bronze statues, but neither of them have survived to the present day. One was a nine-foot-high rendering of Pope Julius II, and the other was a version of his famous David.

The bronzes will now go on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and critics, experts, and members of the public will be able to weigh in on the validity of the attribution claims. The findings of conservation scientists, who studied the statues using neutron imaging and powerful microscopes, will be publicized at a press conference on Monday.

“It has been fantastically exciting to have been able to participate in this ground-breaking project, which has involved input from many art-historians in the UK, Europe and the States, and to draw on evidence from conservation scientists and anatomists,” said Dr. Victoria Avery, keeper of the applied arts department of the Fitzwilliam Museum.

In addition to the statues, the museum display will include evidence that supports the claim that Michelangelo was their maker. The provenance of the two statues has been one of the biggest mysteries in the art world since the 19th century.