Portraits
by Sandro BOTTICELLI

Botticelli established a reputation as a portraitist in the 1470s. It is evidenced by several portraits from this period. Particular attention is drawn to the Portrait of a Man holding up towards the observer a medallion bearing the likeness of Cosimo Medici the Elder, as well as the portraits of Giuliano de' Medici, the younger brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The early portraits typically show their subjects in a three-quarter view, a new ambitious form of portrait which did not become widespread in Florence until about 1470.

Botticelli's late portraits, similarly to the secular stories like the Calumny of Apelles, reveal the stylistic change in his work. Now he no longer added landscape vistas or the view of inner rooms, as he had done in his earlier portraits. Instead he reduced the background to a surface of one colour alone, in order that the observer's attention not be distracted from the depicted person. This reductive manner of painting, sometimes almost ascetic in its effect, reflects Botticelli's breaking away from the sumptuously ornamented, decorative style in which he previously treated his pictorial subjects.

Preview Picture Data Info
Portrait of a Young Man
c. 1469
Tempera on panel, 51 x 33,7 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence


Portrait of a Lady
1470-75
Tempera on panel, 65,7 x 41 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London


Portrait of a Young Woman
c. 1485
Tempera on panel, 61 x 40 cm
Galleria Palatina (Palazzo Pitti), Florence


Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo the Elder
c. 1474
Tempera on panel, 57,5 x 44 cm
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence


Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel
1470s
Tempera on poplar panel, 58 x 39 cm
Private collection


Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel (detail)
1470s
Tempera on poplar panel, 58 x 39 cm
Private collection


Giuliano de' Medici
c. 1478
Tempera on panel, 60 x 39 cm
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo


Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici
1476-77
Tempera on panel, 76 x 53 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington


Giuliano de' Medici
c. 1478
Tempera on panel, 57 x 39 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin


Portrait of a Young Woman
1480-85
Tempera on wood, 82 x 54 cm
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt


Portrait of a Young Woman
after 1480
Oil on panel, 47,5 x 35 cm
Staatliche Museen, Berlin


Portrait of a Young Man
c. 1483
Tempera on panel, 37,5 x 28,2 cm
National Gallery, London


Portrait of a Young Man
1482-83
Tempera on panel, 41 x 31 cm
National Gallery of Art, Washington


Portrait of a Man
c. 1490
Tempera on canvas transferred from wood, 49 x 35 cm
Private collection


Portrait of Lorenzo di Ser Piero Lorenzi
1490-95
Tempera on panel, 50 x 36,5 cm
Museum of Art, Philadelphia


Portrait of Dante
c. 1495
Tempera on canvas, 54,7 x 47,5 cm
Private collection


Portrait of a Youth
1490s
Wood, 57 x 39 cm
Musée du Louvre, Paris



Summary of works by Botticelli
| early paintings | late paintings |
religious paintings | page 1 | page 2 |
| Cappella Sistina | San Barnaba | San Marco |
| allegories | Nastagio | scenic stories | portraits |
| drawings | illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy |



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