Botticelli Portrait Painter

📖 The Scoop

"By now, you've probably heard that there's a $30 million painting by Italian Renaissance star Sandro Botticelli stealing the show at Frieze Masters. The work, Michele Marullo Tarcaniota (ca. 1497), is reputed to be the final work by the artist in private hands. A book specially published for the fair includes a new essay on the painting by scholar Carl Brandon Strehlke and a recitation of the work's impressive provenance: from Bonaparte heir to duke to politician. In addition to all this, Trinity Fine Art director Valentina Rossi noted that the portrait's subject, Michele Marullo, adds to the painting's appeal. Marullo was a poet at the famed Medici court, both a scholar and a political advisor. In Botticelli's rendering, he has thin, well-articulated lips, sunken cheeks, and skeptical, intelligent eyes. "Marullo had this double nature. A violent man, but also a very cultured man," Rossi said, adding that he was "deeply involved in political life of Florence." In 1500, Marullo died by drowning. The story makes the painting seem especially ripe for a museum acquisition--and a miniseries."

Genre: Art / General (fancy, right?)