聖母子と洗礼者聖ヨハネ

Florence around 1500 was still coming out of the Savonarola years. The Dominican friar had preached the city into burning its vanities and was the loudest voice in it for four years, until he was hanged and burned in the main square in May 1498. Botticelli was in his mid-fifties by then, the large mythologies well behind him, and this panel was made for a private house, to be prayed in front of rather than admired. The late manner is there in the handling, the profiles and the folds of cloth stiffer than they once were, the hands of the Virgin and the young John still long and elegant. At the right, roses are painted freely on top of lilies he had sketched there first and then thought better of.