Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), “Venus (detail),” circa 1484-1490, tempera on wood, © Sabauda Gallery, Turin 2017

A stunning Renaissance masterpiece has made its way to the United States for the first time ever, marking a historic moment for American institutions, and in particular this Williamsburg, Virginia, museum.

Any painting that survives today by the hand of Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510) is one worth viewing — especially if you don’t necessarily have to travel to Europe. For the first time ever, one of Botticelli’s famed “Venus” paintings is being shown in the United States, in Williamsburg, Virginia.

On view at the Muscarelle Museum of Art now through April 5, “Botticelli and the Search for the Divine” is being called “the most important Botticelli exhibition ever seen in the United States,” the museum reports. “Every phase of the artist’s tumultuous career is represented in this selection, as well as nine works by his master Filippo Lippi, the only pupil of Masaccio. Botticelli was guided to success by the Medici dynasty, the patrons for sacred altarpieces and sensuous paintings of classical mythology, including several in this unprecedented exhibition. After the fall of the Medici, many of his paintings were lost in the bonfires of the vanities.”

As exciting is the fact that this exhibition will also be shown this spring at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston from April 15 through July 9. To learn more, visit the Muscarelle Museum of Art.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.


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Andrew Webster
Andrew Webster is the former Editor of Fine Art Today and worked as an editorial and creative marketing assistant for Streamline Publishing. Andrew graduated from The University of North Carolina at Asheville with a B.A. in Art History and Ceramics. He then moved on to the University of Oregon, where he completed an M.A. in Art History. Studying under scholar Kathleen Nicholson, he completed a thesis project that investigated the peculiar practice of embedded self-portraiture within Christian imagery during the 15th and early 16th centuries in Italy.

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