Laxey Mine ton, and this would be used to glaze lower end earthenware. During the height of prosperity of the Great Laxey Mine, the Laxey Wheel was erected. The wheel was named the Lady Isabella, after the wife of Sir Charles Hope, who at the time was the Lieutenant Governor of the Isle of Man. During its working life the wheel was capable of pumping 250 gallons of water a minute from a depth of 200 fathoms. By the beginning of the 20th Century the yield from the mine had begun to decline dramatically. During the first six months of 1900 the
Portrait of a Lady Known as Smeralda Brandini "* The same Lady, here surrounded by the masque of Spring, is evidently the subject of a portrait by Botticelli formerly in the Pourtales collection in Paris. This portrait is inscribed "Smeralda Bandinelli"". Rossetti's suggestion that the portrait depicted the model Botticelli used for his "Spring" now seems unlikely. Portrait of a Lady Known as Smeralda Brandini The Portrait of Smeralda Brandini is a tempera on panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli of about 1475, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (museum no. CAI.100). The identification of the sitter is based on the old, but probably