Sandro Botticelli at its most effective, emphasized by the soft continual contours and pastel colors. The "Primavera" and the "Birth" were both seen by Vasari in the mid-16th century at the Villa di Castello, owned from 1477 by Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, and until the publication in 1975 of a Medici inventory of 1499, it was assumed that both works were painted specifically for the villa. Recent scholarship suggests otherwise: the "Primavera" was painted for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco's townhouse in Florence, and "The Birth of Venus" was commissioned by someone else for a different site. Botticelli painted only a small number
Madonna and Child and Two Angels (Botticelli) or two earlier. <BR> Madonna and Child and Two Angels (Botticelli) The Madonna and Child with Two Angels is a painting by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli, dating to c. 1468-1469. It is now in the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, in Naples. The work was once attributed to Filippino Lippi, master of Botticelli. The composition essentially derives from Botticelli's master (and Filippino Lippi's father) Filippo Lippi. The faces and other details suggest around the same period of the "Fortitude" and the other juvenile Madonnas of the Italian painter. The composition is similar to Verrocchio's "Madonna of the Milk", probably