Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci the age of 23. Sandro Botticelli was inspired by her features in "The Birth of Venus" and Piero di Cosimo was a passionate admirer. The subject is a young girl portrayed at half length in profile, facing left. Her breasts are bared and a small snake twines around the necklace she is wearing. In the background is an open landscape, arid on the left and lush on the right. The dark clouds are a symbol of her early death, as is the dead tree in the background. At the base of the painting is a border with an inscription that
Sandro Botticelli it is now in Munich. In both the crowded, intertwined figures around the dead Christ take up nearly all the picture space, with only bare rock behind. The Virgin has swooned, and the other figures form a scrum to support her and Christ. The Munich painting has three less involved saints with attributes (somewhat oddly including Saint Peter, usually regarded as in Jerusalem on the day, but not present at this scene), and gives the figures (except Christ) flat halos shown in perspective, which from now on Botticelli often uses. Both probably date from 1490 to 1495. Early records mentioned,