Venus and the Three Graces Presenting Gifts to a Young Woman
Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445-1510) · c. 1483-1486
A young woman in a dark red dress stands at the right, holding out a white cloth to receive a gift, while four women in floating classical robes approach from the left. Venus, nearest her, offers the present; the three Graces follow in pale green, white and orange, one carrying a vase, and at the far right a small winged Cupid trails behind. The fresco is worn and faded, with the sky and much of the ground lost, yet the rhythm of the figures, their long necks and delicate profiles, is unmistakably Botticelli.
The scene was found in 1873 under whitewash in a first-floor bedroom of the Villa Lemmi outside Florence, which belonged to the Tornabuoni family between 1469 and 1541, together with its companion now hanging beside it and a third scene, too ruined to save. The young woman is most often identified as Giovanna degli Albizzi, who married Lorenzo Tornabuoni in 1486, though scholars have proposed other couples from the same family. Both frescoes were detached in 1881, sold by the Florentine dealer Stefano Bardini and bought by the Louvre in 1882 through the collector Charles Ephrussi.
Did You Know? The fresco spent centuries under whitewash in a villa bedroom until it was rediscovered in 1873.
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