Michelangelo's midnight extension

The show is the museum's first Michelangelo exhibition in 30 years

The British Museum is to open until midnight for the first time to satisfy demand for an exhibition of drawings of the Italian master Michelangelo.

Opening hours are being extended on Saturdays until the end of June for the display, which has been seen by 140,000 visitors since it began in March.

The show contains works from throughout his life, such as early pen drawings and later portrayals of crucifixion.

Some of the 90 images have not been exhibited together for 440 years.

In pictures: Michelangelo exhibition

"The exhibition has been such an overwhelming success that we wanted to find a way to let more people to see the show before the end of its run," said director Neil MacGregor.

The works on display come from collections in the British Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and the Teyler Museum in Haarlem in the Netherlands.

It is the British Museum's first Michelangelo exhibition in 30 years.

A collection of thumbnail sketches and red chalk studies traces the evolution of the painting of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

Visitors are also shown drawings which Michelangelo used to tutor his students, alongside the pupils' own sketches.

A total of 11,000 tickets were sold before it opened, beating the British Museum's previous record of 3,670 advance bookings, set by an exhibition of Persian art.