Venus

In the summer of 2016 this Venus had company. For two months the Galleria Sabauda hung her beside her sister from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the first time the pair had been shown together in Italy. They are two of three surviving canvases in which Botticelli's workshop lifted the goddess out of the Birth of Venus and stood her alone. The third is in a private collection in Geneva. Side by side, the difference was plain. The Berlin Venus is completely nude. This one wears a veil so sheer you mostly see its thin white edges, drawn over her shoulders and down her arms like sleeves. A pearl sits at the parting of her hair, braids fall to her shoulders, and she stands on a grey stone ledge against a black ground. Most scholars think an assistant did much of the painting, while some see Botticelli's own hand. Scans in 2022 and 2023 found cinnabar in her lips and azurite, a mineral blue, in her eyes.