The 500-year-old figurine, made as a study for a much larger sculpture that was planned for St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, but which in the end was never fully completed, is one of the greatest treasures of the V&A.

The marks, known through examination of the wax, are being explored further by conservators and curators at the Museum.

Senior curator Peta Motture says: “It is an exciting prospect that one of Michelangelo's prints could have survived in the wax. Such marks would suggest the physical presence of the creative process of an artist. It is where mind and hand somehow come together… he destroyed a lot of [the wax models] himself. A fingerprint would be a direct connection with the artist.”

These scenes form part of the first episode of the new series of Secrets Of The Museum, which returns following a hugely popular first season, at a time when museums around the UK have been closed for the majority of the past year.

Accompanying the V&A’s specialist teams, the series reveals the tricks of their trade - the painstaking craftsmanship and expertise involved in conserving, cleaning, loaning, acquiring and displaying some of the museum’s 2.3 million objects.

Other highlights in the new series include the acquisition of two items of major contemporary fashion resonance: a Molly Goddard dress (similar to ones worn by Jodie Comer in Killing Eve, Beyoncé in Black Is King, and Rihanna) and JW Anderson’s crochet cardigan worn by Harry Styles, which sparked a global crochet phenomenon after it was duplicated on Tik Tok by a social media influencer in LA.

The series also features the museum’s oldest teddy bear: Little Tommy Tittlemouse who is one 111 years old, and stands just five inches tall.

Housed at the V&A’s Museum Of Childhood, the team follow the little bear and curator Will Newton as they prepare to move from the site whilst the Museum undergoes renovations. Senior Curator Simon Sladen and Yvonne Brewster, one of the founders of Talawa Theatre Group, the UK’s leading Black British Theatre Group, look back at the Group’s formation and the challenges faced by young Black actors in the 1980s as a poster from their production of Smile Orange is put on display in the museum’s Theatre & Performance galleries.

Secrets of the Museum in on BBC Two on Tuesday 20 July at 9pm and runs for six weeks. It will be available as a boxset on BBC iPlayer from 20 July.

It was commissioned by Emma Cahusac for BBC Arts and BBC Two. Catey Sexton is Series Producer/Director, and Executive Producer for Blast! Films is Alistair Pegg.