Sandro Botticelli and workshop, Venere (Venus) (detail), about 1484-90. Oil on canvas, transferred from wood panel. Galleria Sabauda, Turin.
An exhibition entitled “Botticelli and the Search for the Divine: Florentine Painting between the Medici and the Bonfires of the Vanities” is set to tour the United States this year, and the MFA is one of the stops on its list. A collaboration between our own MFA Boston, the Muscarella Museum of Art in Virginia, and the Associazione Culturale Metamorfosi of Italy, it boasts sixteen paintings by the Italian master Sandro Botticelli, six pieces from his master, Filippo Lippi, and works by Lippi’s son and Botticelli’s pupil, Filippino Lippi. On the exhibition, the director of the Muscarelle Museum, Aaron De Groft, states:
We are extremely proud to be able to bring to this country a ground-breaking exhibition of one of the worlds greatest artists. … The Botticelli show continues a tradition of internationally important exhibitions, following Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and Leonardo da Vinci in recent years, in which exhibitions of great original works of art provide the lens for us to explore the themes and ideas that inspired their genius.
One of the highlights of the show is the inclusion of a painting of Venus, one of two that the artist ever created. (Of course, this doesn’t include the grander and more famous depictions such as the Birth of Venus.) Venere and more will be on view from April 15, 2017 to July 9, 2017 at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Read more about the exhibition on Artnet.
One Comment
Ron posted on August 13, 2019 at 3:27 am
“The Beauty comes, and had I tongues of fire,
So many songs did Beauty e’er inspire,
Who sees her, of his wits is dispossessed,
And who possessed her was too highly blessed…”