The Birth of Venus Roman equivalent of the Greek Chloris; in the "Primavera" Chloris is transformed into the figure of Flora next to her, following Ovid's "Fasti", but it is hard to see that such a transformation is envisaged here. However, the roses blown along with the two flying figures would be appropriate for Chloris. The subject is not strictly the "Birth of Venus", a title only given the painting in the nineteenth century (though given as the subject by Vasari), but the next scene in her story, where she arrives on land, blown by the wind. The land probably represents either Cythera or
Portrait of a Young Woman (Botticelli, Frankfurt) similar Botticelli paintings are to be found in the National Gallery, London, the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin, and in the Marubeni Collection, Tokyo. David Alan Brown of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. describes the painting as of an ideally beautiful young woman mythologised as a nymph or goddess, a view reflected in the title given it by the Städel. It belongs to a group of such paintings by Botticelli or his workshop. The art historian Aby Warburg first suggested the painting was an idealised portrait of Simonetta Vespucci. It is suggested that Quattrocento paintings of hair and water are