Portrait of a Young Woman

The Quiet Mystery of the Woman in the Portrait

Nobody can say for certain who this young woman is. Botticelli painted her sometime around 1480, in profile against a deep black background, and the work has hung in the Städel Museum in Frankfurt for well over a hundred years. The most popular theory points to Simonetta Vespucci, a Florentine noblewoman whose beauty was so famous in her own short lifetime that poets wrote sonnets about her and the Medici brothers fell over each other to commission portraits. She died of tuberculosis at twenty-two. Botticelli would have painted this picture years after her death, which would go a long way to explaining the slightly remote, almost otherworldly look on her face. She isn't a real woman sitting for a real artist. She's the idea of her.

An Astonishing Amount of Detail in the Hair

The first thing most people notice is the hair. Long blonde waves, tiny pearls threaded through dozens of small braids, pink ribbons crisscrossing the whole arrangement, and that single bristly black feather tucked behind the ear. None of this was fashion as we'd recognise it now. It was a coded language. Pearls suggested purity. The braids nodded to classical statues of nymphs. The cameo brooch hanging at her chest was copied from an actual ancient gem owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. Lorenzo's gem collection was famous around Florence, and slipping a recognisable piece of it into a painting was a quiet way of flattering whoever paid the bill.

What It's Actually Like to Paint

This one's a project. There's no other word for it. The detail in the hair alone will keep you busy for several sessions, and the pearls are tiny cream dots over a darker shadow, which means slowing down and getting the rhythm right. The skin is its own challenge too, because Botticelli worked in incredibly fine gradations between pale pink and almost grey-white. None of that is meant to scare you off. It's just honest. If you've finished a couple of simpler kits and want something to really sink your teeth into, this is the one. The black background is forgiving and gives the figure plenty of breathing room, so you can spend your energy where it really matters.

More Old Masters Worth Painting at Home

If you've enjoyed spending time inside this Renaissance portrait, you'll find plenty more to keep your brushes busy in our Famous Paintings collection. It brings together work from Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet, Matisse, Hokusai and others, all turned into paint by numbers kits you can complete at home. Each one is a chance to spend real, slow time with a painting most people only see for thirty seconds behind a velvet rope in a busy museum.