Botticelli and Treasures from the Hamilton Collection

Delightful exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery featuring works from the Hamilton Collection bought in 1882 by the Berlin Museum.

At the centre of the show are the drawings by Botticelli to illustrate Dante’s Divine Comedy. I have seen these before in a Royal Academy show a number of years ago and they make up a wonderful 15th century comic strip. I love the detail in them and yet they are so delicate. I must admit hell and purgatory are much more fun than heaven. I think my favourite were one groups of sinner whose punishment seemed to be to jump down a man hole with their feet on fire, this lend to a wonderful groups of naked lower torsos with little flames coming out of their feet.

I just love the fact these are drawn by Botticelli’s won hand for Lorenzo di Pierofrancesco de Medici and you can even see the pencil drawing under the ink and that changes he made during the thinking process.

The drawings were show with manuscripts from the same period often open on pages with similar themes of heaven and hell. However the best book was the Beaufort Bible which was the actual bible that is shown in Raphael’s portrait of Pope Leo X.

Closes on 15 May 2016.

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