There are two Botticelli shows in London, Botticelli Reimagined at the V&A and
Botticelli
and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection at the Courtauld Gallery.
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| Erwin Blumenfeld, Advertisement from Picture Post, 1969 |
Sandro Botticelli was born in 1445 in Florence and
his best known works, Primavera and The Birth of Venus, are both held by the
Uffizi in his hometown and unfortunately don’t travel, but the V&A show, the
largest exhibition of Botticelli paintings and drawings ever held in the UK, does
have lots of other treasures. Botticelli is, it seems, current and is with us even
away from these exhibitions. In London we are able to see no less than nine of
his paintings for free on a regular basis at the National Gallery including Venus and Mars and one of my favourites,
Portrait of a Young Man (a different
painting from the one of the same name at the V&A). I am a little bit
obsessed by a series of his paintings, which I have only seen in reproduction,
held by the Prado in Madrid and sadly not at the V&A – widescreen ratio
panels with a cross sectioned storyboard showing the grizzly tale of Nastagio
degli Onesti, which involves a girl being hunted by dogs – they are flatly
painted with a hint of naivety and I love looking at them.
