WALK INTO THE GALLERY, and there’s Michelangelo, staring right at you. Above that set of dark eyes, the master’s crinkled forehead bears the weight of a lifetime as the most prodigious Western artist of them all. His crooked nose reflects the battle scars of his time as an insufferable know-it-all youth (a fellow sculpting apprentice reportedly obliterated young Michelangelo’s nose when he offered unsolicited fresco advice).

The portrait may be incomplete, but it’s perfectly fitting that such a work-in-progress leads the way on the latest Museum of Fine Arts, Houston exhibition, titled Michelangelo and the Vatican. Pulled together over a relatively brief nine months, the process-heavy show is composed of an exquisite patchwork of loans from private collections and cultural institutions alike, including New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, Italy.