Portrait of a Young Woman (Botticelli, Frankfurt)

Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting which is commonly believed to be by the Italian Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli, executed between 1480 and 1485. Others 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 is a copy in reverse of "Nero's Seal", a famous antique carnelian representing Apollo and Marsyas, which belonged to Lorenzo de' Medici.[1][2][3]

Portrait of a Young Woman
ArtistSandro Botticelli
Year1480–1485
MediumTempera on wood
Dimensions82 cm × 54 cm (32 in × 21 in)
LocationStädel Museum

It is housed in the Städel Museum of Frankfurt, Germany. Other similar Botticelli paintings are to be found in the National Gallery, London, the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and in the Marubeni Collection, Tokyo.[4]

David Alan Brown of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. describes the painting as of an ideally beautiful young woman mythologised as a nymph or goddess, a view reflected in the title given it by the Städel. It belongs to a group of such paintings by Botticelli or his workshop.[5]

The art historian Aby Warburg first suggested the painting was an idealised portrait of Simonetta Vespucci.

It is suggested that Quatrocento paintings of hair and water are related, though it is uncertain which most informs the other.[6]

  • Andrea del Verrocchio - Head of a Woman, (verso & recto), c. 1475, charcoal (some oiled?), heightened with lead white, pen and brown ink (r.), charcoal (v.), 324 x 273 mm., British Museum. Verrocchio is credited with inventing this type of ideal beauty.[2][7]
  • Seal of Nero, a carnelian engraved gem dating from the time of Augustus once in the possession of Lorenzo de’ Medici, currently in the Naples National Archeological Museum

Sources
References
  1. Malaguzzi, p. 73
  2. Brown, p. 182
  3. Gibson, This write life Archived 2013-09-15 at WebCite
  4. Brown, p. 184
  5. Brown, p. 182-4
  6. Lugli, Emanuele; University (2016). "Watery Manes. Reversing the Stream of Thought about Quattrocento Italian Heads". Internet Archaeology (42). doi:10.11141/ia.42.6.11.
  7. Wivel, Traces of Soul, Mind, and Body
Bibliography
  • Brown, David Alan (2003). Virtue and Beauty: Leonardo's Ginevra de' Benci and Renaissance Portraits of Women. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0691114569
  • Gibson, Mary Jo. "What was really in the Medici Treasury?". This Write Life. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
  • Malaguzzi, Silvia. Botticelli. Giunti Editore, 2009. ISBN 88-09-03677-8
  • Musa, Mark (1999). Petrarch: The Canzoniere. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0253213174.
  • Quint, David L. (2005). The Stanze of Angelo Poliziano. Penn State University Press. ISBN 978-0271028712.
  • Wivel, Matthias. "Traces of Soul, Mind, and Body". The Metabunker. Archived from the original on 15 September 2013. Retrieved 15 September 2013.
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