Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521)
Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Cleopatra, c. 1490
Height: 570 mm (22.44 in). Width: 420 mm (16.54 in).
Musée Condé, Chantilly, Paris
Piero di Cosimo (2 January 1462[1] – 12 April 1522), also known as Piero di Lorenzo, was a Florentine painter of the Italian Renaissance. He is most famous for the mythological and allegorical subjects he painted in the late Quattrocento; he is said to have abandoned these to return to religious subjects under the influence of Savonarola, the preacher who exercised a huge sway in Florence in the 1490s, and had a similar effect on Botticelli. The High Renaissance style of the new century had little influence on him, and he retained the straightforward realism of his figures, which combines with an often whimsical treatment of his subjects to create the distinctive mood of his works. Vasari has many stories of his eccentricity, and the mythological subjects have an individual and quirky fascination.
He trained under Cosimo Roselli, whose daughter he married, and assisted him in his Sistine Chapel frescos. He was also influenced by Early Netherlandish painting, and busy landscapes feature in many works, often forests seen close at hand. Several of his most striking secular works are in the long "landscape" format used for paintings inset into cassone wedding chests or spalliera headboards or panelling. He was apparently famous for designing the temporary decorations for Carnival and other festivities. More
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Portrait of a young woman, circa 1480-1485
(ideal portrait Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Tempera on wood
82 × 54 cm (32.3 × 21.3 in)
Städel, Frankfurt am Main
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) see bottom
At age fifteen or sixteen she married Marco Vespucci, son of Piero, who was a distant cousin of the explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. They met in April 1469; she was with her parents at the church of San Torpete when she met Marco; the doge Piero il Fregoso and much of the Genoese nobility were present.
Marco had been sent to Genoa by his father, Piero, to study at the Banco di San Giorgio. Marco was accepted by Simonetta's father, and he was very much in love with her, so the marriage was logical. Her parents also knew the marriage would be advantageous because Marco's family was well connected in Florence, especially to the Medici family.
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Portrait of a young woman, circa 1476-1480
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Tempera on panel
47.5 × 35 cm (18.7 × 13.8 in)
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) see bottom
Simonetta and Marco were married in Florence. Simonetta was instantly popular at the Florentine court. Upon arriving in Florence Simonetta was discovered by Sandro Botticelli and other prominent painters through the Vespucci family. Before long every nobleman in the city was besotted with her, including the brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano of the ruling Medici family. Lorenzo was occupied with affairs of state, but his younger brother was free to pursue her.
Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale (1872 – 1945)
Boticcelli's studio The first visit of Simonetta presented by Giulio and Lorenzo de Medici
Oil on canvas
29 1/2 x 49 3/4in (75 x 126.5cm)
Private Collection
While at the academy, she came under the influence of John Byam Liston Shaw, a protégé of John Everett Millais much influenced by John William Waterhouse. When Byam Shaw founded an art school in 1911, Fortescue-Brickdale became a teacher there.
In 1909, Ernest Brown, of the Leicester Galleries, commissioned a series of 28 watercolour illustrations to Tennyson's Idylls of the King, which she painted over two years. They were exhibited in the gallery in 1911, and 24 of them were published the next year in a deluxe edition of the first four Idylls
Later, she also worked with stained glass. She was a staunch Christian, and donated works to churches. Amongst her best known works are The Uninvited Guest and Guinevere. She died on 10 March 1945, and is buried at Brompton Cemetery, London. More
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Primavera, c. 1482
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Tempera on panel
203 × 314 cm (79.9 × 123.6 in)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Primavera, c. 1482
Venus standing in her arch
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Primavera, c. 1482
Venus standing in her arch
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) see bottom
Simonetta Vespucci died, presumably tuberculosis, on the night of 26–27 April 1476. She was twenty-two at the time of her death. The entire city was reported to mourn her death and thousands followed her coffin to its burial.
Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521)
A Satyr mourning over a Nymph, circa 1495
The Death of Procris
Oil on poplar wood
65.4 × 184.2 cm (25.7 × 72.5 in)
National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521)
A Satyr mourning over a Nymph, circa 1495
The Death of Procris
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Piero di Cosimo (1462–1521) see above
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Pallas and the Centaur, circa 1482
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Tempera on canvas
205 × 147.5 cm (80.7 × 58.1 in)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy.
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) see bottom
Botticelli finished painting The Birth of Venus in 1485, nine years later. Some have claimed that Venus, in this painting, closely resembles Simonetta. This claim, however, is dismissed as "romantic nonsense".
"The vulgar assumption, for instance, that she was Botticelli's model for all his famous beauties seems to be based on no better grounds than the feeling that the most beautiful woman of the day ought to have modelled for the most sensitive painter."
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Nascita di Venere, The Birth of Venus, c. 1483 until 1485
Tempera on panel
Length: 278.5 cm (109.6 in). Height: 172.5 cm (67.9 in).
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Nascita di Venere, The Birth of Venus, c. 1483 until 1485
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Depicts the goddess Venus, having emerged from the sea as a fully grown woman, arriving at the sea-shore. The seashell she stands on was a symbol in classical antiquity for a woman's vulva. Thought to be based in part on the Venus de' Medici, an ancient Greek marble sculpture of Aphrodite. More
Some suggest that Botticelli also had fallen in love with her, a view supported by his request to be buried at her feet in the Church of Ognissanti - the parish church of the Vespucci - in Florence. His wish was carried out when he died some 34 years later, in 1510. More
Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Pomegranate, c. 1487
Tempera on panel
143.5 cm diameter (56.5 in)
Uffizi Gallery, Florence, Italy
Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Pomegranate, c. 1487
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Botticelli used her as the inspiration of many of his finest and most lovely works including not just The Birth of Venus but also his Primavera and many of his Madonnas. They may not have been directly modelled upon Simonetta but her swanlike neck, fine features, downcast amber eyes and thick corn coloured hair are distinctive. More
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli (1445 –1510), was an Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. He belonged to the Florentine School under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, a movement that Giorgio Vasari would characterize less than a hundred years later in his Vita of Botticelli as a "golden age". Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th century; since then, his work has been seen to represent the linear grace of Early Renaissance painting.
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Events in the life of Moses, c.1481-82.
Fresco.
348.5 × 558 cm (137.2 × 219.7 in)
Sistine Chapel
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
Events in the life of Moses, c.1481-82.
The Youth of Moses
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Detail
Botticelli was born in the city of Florence. He was initially trained as a goldsmith by his brother Antonio. There are very few details of Botticelli's life, but it is known that he became an apprentice when he was about fourteen years old, which would indicate that he received a fuller education than other Renaissance artists. By 1462 he was apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi; many of his early works have been attributed to the elder master, and attributions continue to be uncertain. Influenced also by the monumentality of Masaccio's painting, it was from Lippi that Botticelli learned a more intimate and detailed manner.
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510)
The Virgin and Child, c. 1490
(Simonetta Vespucci ?)
Tempera on panel
88.9 x 55.9 cm (35 x 22 in.)
Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge
By 1470, Botticelli had his own workshop. Even at this early date, his work was characterized by a conception of the figure as if seen in low relief, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow which would indicate fully modelled forms.
In his works, the influence of Gothic realism is tempered by Botticelli's study of the antique. But if the painterly means may be understood, the subjects themselves remain fascinating for their ambiguity. The complex meanings of his paintings continue to receive widespread scholarly attention, mainly focusing on the poetry and philosophy of humanists who were the artist's contemporaries.
In the mid-1480s, Botticelli worked on a major fresco cycle with Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi, for Lorenzo the Magnificent's villa near Volterra; in addition he painted many frescoes in Florentine churches. In 1491 he served on a committee to decide upon a façade for the Cathedral of Florence.
Botticelli never wed, and expressed a strong disliking to the idea of marriage, a prospect he claimed gave him nightmares. More
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