to experiment in compositional details as well as technique, with a special interest in painting in oils on new surfaces, whether plaster, stone, alabaster or slate. Though tending to be dark, several of his works with these unorthodox backings have survived well. Though he often covered the whole surface, leaving no indication of the support, some of his paintings on mineral sheets leave the background unpainted. This is the case with a small head of Clement VII in Naples, wearing the beard he always had as a penance after the Sack of Rome. He made excellent drawings, nearly all as compositional sketches. He continued to prefer to draw on light blue paper in black chalk with white highlights, a Venetian habit. Few if any early ones survive, and he may have changed his methods to use more precise sketches under the influence of Michelangelo and Raphael. Few survive for his portraits. A British Museum "curator's comment" on one of their late drawings notes: "As so often with Sebastiano's drawings, the first impression is one of unrhythmic dryness; but the suggestion of atmosphere, the sensitively drawn contemplative faces and the subtle use of reflected lights and tonal transitions leave no doubt that [this] is from his own hand. Pupils Sebastiano seems to have followed Michelangelo in painting with "no more than merely mechanical assistance" from a studio, and had no significant pupils formed in his style. Whether this was a cause or result of his avoidance of large compositions and his court office from the 1530s we cannot know. Personal life and relationship with Michelangelo The main sources for his personality and habits are Vasari and surviving letters, mostly to and from Michelangelo. Vasari knew Sebastiano, but probably not very well; although he had been compiling material for some time, the first edition of his Lives did not appear until 1550, after Sebastiano's death, and it is not clear if he had specifically discussed the biography with Sebastiano. He knew Michelangelo rather better, and his description of Sebastiano is probably heavily influenced by the hostile attitude Michelangelo had towards Sebastiano after 1534. Vasari takes up much of his Life bemoaning Sebastiano's supposed indolence and neglect of his artistic talent for a comfortable and convivial life, at least after 1531. Vasari says that in later life he lived in a fine house near the Piazza del Popolo, keeping a very good table,