The Birth of Venus sources and interpretations. Many art historians who specialize in the Italian Renaissance have found Neoplatonic interpretations, of which two different versions have been articulated by Edgar Wind and Ernst Gombrich, to be the key to understanding the painting. Botticelli represented the Neoplatonic idea of divine love in the form of a nude Venus. For Plato – and so for the members of the Florentine Platonic Academy – Venus had two aspects: she was an earthly goddess who aroused humans to physical love or she was a heavenly goddess who inspired intellectual love in them. Plato further argued that contemplation of
Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist (Botticelli) wealthy English merchant Thomas Blayds in Liverpool. Later, the work was sold to Lord Wigan, Earl of Crawford and Balcarres, thus remaining in England. On October 2 of 1947, the work was acquired by the São Paulo Museum of Art with funds donated by Mrs. Sinha Junqueira, businesswoman and patron from Ribeirão Preto. Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John the Baptist (Botticelli) The Virgin and Child with the Infant Saint John the Baptist is a tempera painting on wood executed by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli and his studio (Bartolomeo di Giovanni or Raffaelino di'Carli). The tondo,