Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, better known as Sandro Botticelli or simply Botticelli, was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century, when he was rediscovered by the Pre-Raphaelites who stimulated a reappraisal of his work. Since then, his paintings have been seen to represent the linear grace of late Italian Gothic and some Early Renaissance painting, even though they date from the latter half of the Italian Renaissance period.
Paintings by Sandro Botticelli
Venus and Mars (Botticelli) (1485)
Venus and Mars (or Mars and Venus) is a panel painting of about 1485 by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It shows the Roman gods Venus, goddess of love, and Mars, god of war, in an allegory of beauty and valour. The youthful and voluptuous couple recline in a forest setting, surrounded by playful baby satyrs.
The painting was probably intended to commemorate a wedding, set into panelling or a piece of furniture to adorn the bedroom of the bride and groom, possibly as part of a set of works. This is suggested by the wide format and the close view of the figures. It is widely seen as representation of an ideal view of sensuous love. It seems likely that Botticelli worked out the concept for the painting, with its learned allusions, with an advisor such as Poliziano, the Medici house poet and Renaissance Humanist scholar.
Adoration of the Magi (Botticelli) (1475)
The Adoration of the Magi (Italian: Adorazione dei Magi) is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli. Botticelli painted this piece for the altar in Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama's chapel in Santa Maria Novella around 1475. This painting depicts the Biblical story of the Three Magi following a star to find the newborn Jesus. The image of the altarpiece centers on the Virgin Mary and the newborn Jesus, with Saint Joseph behind them. Before them are the three kings who are described in the New Testament story of the Adoration of the Magi. The three kings worship the Christ Child and present him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. In addition, the Holy Family is surrounded by a group of people who came to see the child who was said to be the son of God.
Around the year 1475, the Florentine banker and financial broker, Gaspare di Zanobi del Lama (alternately spelled: Guasparre dal Lama; Lami) commissioned the painting of the Adoration of the Magi by Sandro Botticelli. Gaspare di Zanobi, the son of a barber, was from Empoli, a small town outside of Florence. The altarpiece was commissioned for the altar of Gaspare's funerary chapel located in the Dominican monastery, Santa Maria Novella.
Primavera (Botticelli) (1480)
Primavera (Italian pronunciation: [primaˈvɛːra], meaning "Spring") is a large panel painting in tempera paint by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli made in the late 1470s or early 1480s (datings vary). It has been described as "one of the most written about, and most controversial paintings in the world", and also "one of the most popular paintings in Western art".
The painting depicts a group of figures from classical mythology in a garden, but no story has been found that brings this particular group together. Most critics agree that the painting is an allegory based on the lush growth of Spring, but accounts of any precise meaning vary, though many involve the Renaissance Neoplatonism which then fascinated intellectual circles in Florence. The subject was first described as Primavera by the art historian Giorgio Vasari who saw it at Villa Castello, just outside Florence, by 1550.
The Birth of Venus (1485)
The Birth of Venus (Italian: Nascita di Venere [ˈnaʃʃita di ˈvɛːnere]) is a painting by the Italian artist Sandro Botticelli, probably executed in the mid-1480s. It depicts the goddess Venus arriving at the shore after her birth, when she had emerged from the sea fully grown (called Venus Anadyomene and often depicted in art). The painting is in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.
Although the two are not a pair, the painting is inevitably discussed with Botticelli's other very large mythological painting, the Primavera, also in the Uffizi. They are among the most famous paintings in the world, and icons of Italian Renaissance painting; of the two, the Birth is better known than the Primavera. As depictions of subjects from classical mythology on a very large scale they were virtually unprecedented in Western art since classical antiquity, as was the size and prominence of a nude female figure in the Birth. It used to be thought that they were both commissioned by the same member of the Medici family, but this is now uncertain.
Madonna of the Magnificat (1483)
The Madonna of the Magnificat (Italian: Madonna del Magnificat), is a painting of circular or tondo form by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. It is also referred to as the Virgin and Child with Five Angels. In the tondo, we see the Virgin Mary writing the Magnificat with her right hand, with a pomegranate in her left, as two angels crown her with the Christ child on her lap. It is now in the galleries of the Uffizi, in Florence.
The history of the painting is not known, but the Uffizi acquired it from a private collection in 1784. It may have come from one of the many monasteries suppressed by the Archduke Pietro Leopoldo. There are several copies of the painting, including one in the Louvre and one in the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. In the Louvre's copy, the leftmost angel, crowning the Virgin, is erased, leaving room for a large spread of wings for the highest angel in the trio to the left.
Calumny of Apelles (1497)
The Calumny of Apelles is a panel painting in tempera by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli. Based on the description of a lost ancient painting by Apelles, the work was completed in about 1494–95, and is now in the Uffizi, Florence.
The content of Apelles' painting, as described by Lucian, became popular in Renaissance Italy, and Botticelli was neither the first nor last Italian Renaissance artist to depict it. Leon Battista Alberti had praised it and recommended it as a subject for artists to recreate in his highly influential De pictura of 1435, and there were four translations of Lucian's Greek into Latin or Italian during the 15th century.
Pallas and the Centaur (1482)
Pallas and the Centaur is a painting by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, c. 1482. It is now in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. It has been proposed as a companion piece to his Primavera, though it is a different shape. The medium used is tempera paints on canvas and its size is 207 x 148 cm. The painting has been retouched in many places, and these retouchings have faded.
The life-size figures are from classical mythology and probably form an allegory. There is a centaur on the left, and a female figure holding a very elaborate halberd on the right. She is clutching the hair of the centaur, who was evidently about to shoot from his bow. The female figure was called Camilla in the earliest record of the painting, an inventory of 1499, but in an inventory of 1516 she is called Minerva, the Roman equivalent of Pallas Athene; Pallas remains her usual modern identification, but Camilla has supporters. Arthur Frothingham suggested that she is Florencia, the personification of the city of Florence. The fine cloth of her dress is decorated with the Medici's three-ring insignia.
Youth of Moses (1481)
The Youth of Moses or The Trials of Moses is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli and his workshop, executed in 1481–1482 in the Sistine Chapel, Rome (modern-day Italy).
On 27 October 1480, Botticelli, together with other Florentine painters, left for Rome where he had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel as early as the Spring of 1481, along with Pietro Perugino, who was already there.
Portrait of a Young Woman (Botticelli, Frankfurt) (1482)
Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting attributed to the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, who is thought to have executed it between 1480 and 1485, although some authorities attribute authorship to Jacopo da Sellaio.
The woman is shown in profile but with her bust turned in three-quarter view to reveal a cameo medallion she is wearing around her neck. The medallion in the painting is a copy in reverse of "Nero's Seal", a famous antique carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas, which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici. Art historian Emanuele Lugli has suggested that the three "tassels" of hair at the center of the painting represents downward flames, symbolising the love that onlookers ought to experience when looking at the portrait since, in the Renaissance it was thought that "hair inflames desire".
The Mystical Nativity (1500)
The Mystical Nativity is a modern name given to an oil painting on canvas executed c. 1500–1501 by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli that is held in the National Gallery collection in London. It is his only signed work and has an unusual iconography for a painting of the Nativity. Other aspects of the work are unusual as well.
The Greek inscription by the painter at the top of the painting translates as: 'This painting, at the end of the year 1500, in the troubles of Italy, I, Alessandro, in the half-time after the time, painted, according to the eleventh [chapter] of Saint John, in the second woe of the Apocalypse, during the release of the devil for three and a half years; then he shall be bound in the twelfth [chapter] and we shall see [him buried] as in this picture'. Botticelli believed he was living during the Great Tribulation, and possibly due to the upheavals in Europe at the time, may have been predicting Christ's millennium as stated in the Book of Revelation.
Temptations of Christ (Botticelli) (1480)
The Temptations of Christ is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed in 1480–1482 and located in the Sistine Chapel, Rome.
On 27 October 1480 Botticelli, together with other Florentine painters, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, left for Rome, where he had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel as early as the Spring of 1481, along with Pietro Perugino, who was already there.
Punishment of the Sons of Korah (1481)
The Punishment of the Sons of Korah[1] or Punishment of the Rebels is a fresco by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed in 1480–1482 in the Sistine Chapel, Rome.
On 27 October 1480 Botticelli, together with other Florentine painters, left for Rome, where he had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel as early as spring 1481, along with Pietro Perugino, who was already there.