Botticelli, Sandro (c.1445-1510)
San Domenico (Saint Dominic)
c.1498–1505
Tempera on canvas (transferred from panel), 44.5 x 26 cm
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
Botticelli’s work originally consisted of four parts: the two central ones carrying an Annunciation scene and the side wings with figures of Saint Dominic and Saint Jerome. In 1928 the central element, the Annunciation, was transferred to Moscow and is now in the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts. Botticelli produced Saint Dominic and Saint Jerome in the late period of his career, when his view of the world changed and so, accordingly, did his manner of painting. After being the court painter of the rulers of Florence, the Medici family, he became a participant in the city’s political and religious conflicts associated with the ascendancy of the ascetic monk Girolamo Savonarola, who called for the moral purification of society. (SHM)
Pair:
Botticelli, Sandro (c.1445-1510)
San Girolamo
c.1498–1505
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg