I got up very early on Sunday – for me. We were booked onto a guided tour around the Botticelli Exhibition at 10:15 in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. Just recently we have been to a couple of guided tours around exhibitions and have really enjoyed them. So it was a relatively small price to pay to get some culture. It had the added advantage that we got a parking space practically outside the exhibition and beat most of the crowds to see the exhibition. It is very popular.
The tour was well organised with everyone being given a headset and the tour guide using a microphone. So despite it still being quite crowded we could still hear everything well. The tour lasted about an hour and took in 6 or 7 of the paintings, which was quite enough. The choice of paintings was also very good to cover a wide range of the works. The tour guide was obviously knowledgeable and told us lots of interesting background information, including some about how the exhibition was organized and how the paintings were transported.
Idealized Female Portrait, Städel Museum, Frankfurt
This was the first painting we looked at. It is painted on wood and is an unusual portrait as it was not full profile, the subject being partly turned towards the viewer. It is thought to portray Simonetta Vespucci as a nymph. Although a portrait it is probably not an exact likeness, but an idealized likeness showing features considered to be desirable such as an elongated neck, sloping shoulders and a high forehead.
Venus, Botticelli Workshop, Staatliche Museen, Gemäldegalerie, Berlin
This painting is a copy probably made to order for a particular client of the famous Birth of Venus, which appears to have been a big hit from the beginning, with many wealthy clients wanting their own example. The copies were produced in the workshop of Botticelli, but most likely by his students rather than Botticelli himself. Again the figure is idealized showing the extremely sloping shoulders and the second toe being longer than the big toe – a hallmark of Botticelli apparently. The hair in this painting is styled differently to the Birth of Venus, but the pose in instantly recognisable.
Adoration of the Christ Child (“Wemyss Madonna”), National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
The detail on this painting was amazing. There was quite an amount of gold paint, some as embroidery around the edges of the cloak. It was as if you could see every stitch! Apparently as it was a fairly recent acquisition to the National Gallery of Scotland from a private collection it had not be subjected to any “unfortunate” restorations. It was restored at the National Gallery and benefited from modern techniques that allowed it to be returned to what is believed to be the original condition. Certainly you can see lots of detail such as very fine lines around the finger nails and defining the individual fingers.
Having recently been to another tour of the most important works of the Städel where some of the mediaeval paintings were explained, it was interesting to hear how the style had changed and been developed in the Renaissance. Botticelli still used quite a lot of gold paint in his works, but to add detail, whereas in the mediaeval works it is often used as the background.
When we left the museum after noon there were long queues of people waiting to get in – right out onto the street. It was miserable weather – raining and near freezing temperatures. I felt sorry for the people standing out in that weather and probably getting very cold feet standing in the slush of melting snow and glad that I had forsaken my Sunday lie in to beat the rush.
All images are press images from the Städel Museum, Frankfurt