It took Michelangelo approximately four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from 1508 to 1512. The project was completed for Pope Julius II in Vatican City.
Michelangelo was primarily known as a sculptor, and he initially received a more limited commission involving the Twelve Apostles. He persuaded the pope to approve a much more ambitious design: scenes from Genesis, including the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, the Fall of Man, and the Flood, surrounded by prophets, sibyls, and ancestors of Christ.
The ceiling’s curved architecture made the work especially demanding. Michelangelo worked on scaffolding high above the chapel floor and painted much of the design in buon fresco, applying pigment to fresh plaster so the colors became embedded as it dried. He did not paint the entire ceiling in one uninterrupted session; the work proceeded in stages.
The four-year figure is rounded, since sources describe the project as running from 1508 until its public unveiling in October 1512. The later Last Judgment on the altar wall was a separate commission, completed decades afterward.