With a selection of portraits, mythological allegories and depictions of the Virgin – altogether some eighty works by Botticelli, his workshop and his contemporaries – the Städel Museum is presenting the first exhibition ever to be devoted to the oeuvre of this great Italian Renaissance master in German-speaking lands. All in all, it will be possible to show more than 80 works by Botticelli, his workshop, and some of his contemporaries like Filippino Lippi or Andrea del Verrocchio. The most important collections in Europe and the USA support the show with central works by the Florentine Renaissance artist. The exhibition focuses on precious creations from all phases of Botticelli’s oeuvre, confronts them with thematically related works by his colleagues, and examines them in the historical context of their making. Organized in three parts, it explores the painter’s various tasks and thematic fields. The portraits and allegorical paintings of the first section illustrate the degree of sophistication with which Botticelli drew on this highly developed genre and enriched it through new impulses. While the second chapter centers on his famous mythological representations of goddesses and heroines of virtue, the third part is dedicated to his abundant religious oeuvre.
