Possible Sandro Botticelli Fresco
Painting Found in Ruined Hungarian Castle.
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One of the 4
Medieval Virtues Sandro Botticelli? fresco
painting, ca. 1470,
Esztergom, Hungary |
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06/10/2007 - A restoration
project in Esztergom, Hungary has resulted in a surprise possible
attribution of a fresco
painting to Early Italian
Renaissance painter Sandro
Botticelli. While restorations have been ongoing since 2000 on
the four-piece mural, it is only in recent weeks that art
historians have recognized the hand of Sandro Botticelli in the one
of the fresco paintings.
The mural paintings were
commissioned to decorate the castle chapel by Janos Vitez,
Archbishop of Esztergom. To paint the frescoes, Vitez employed
the school of Fra Filippo
Lippi to whom Sandro Botticelli was apprenticed. The
images depict the four medieval virtues, a common theme of the
Italian Renaissance.
Apparent in the fresco painting to even a casual observer is
the flowing red hair characteristic of Sandro Botticelli's favorite
model,
Simonetta Vespucci, who died in 1476, but who Botticelli
continued to paint for the remainder of his career.
Janos Vitez was a Hungarian
Humanist
who was born around 1400 and reigned as archbishop in Hungary from
1465 to 1472.
Brenda Harness, Art
Historian
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