Who Is That? Botticelli’s Mystery Woman
Sandro Botticelli, Idealized Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph), ca. 1480-1485. Frankfurt am Main, Städel Museum. Mixed Technique on poplar
When reading Patricia Simon’s essay, “Women in Frames, The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture,” there was an instant interest to look deeper into the psychoanalytical aspect of the female’s role in the Italian Renaissance, most specifically through the profile portrait. The profile portrait mimics the act that we categorize in the present day as a “selfie.” Although these Renaissance captured moments were entirely almost arranged by men in an attempt to present the female as a product to society. When coming across Sandro Botticelli’s, Idealized Portrait of a Lady (allegedly, Simonetta Vespucci), Frankfurt, there was this undeniable sense of particular and peculiar placement, straightforwardness, and fantasy exhibited throughout the painting. The women of the Renaissance rarely had a say on how they would be presented through these portraits to the world, so why this woman and this portrayal? “The gaze, then a metaphor for worldliness and virility, made of Renaissance woman an object of public discourse, exposed to scrutiny and framed by the parameters of propriety, display and ‘impression management’. Put simply, why else paint a woman except as an object of display within male discourse?” (Simon, p. 8) Simon’s essay clarifies the preconceived notion of the expectations of a woman during the time of the Italian Renaissance, so what was Botticelli’s fascination with this alleged Simonetta if she did not fit the societal convention?
Botticelli was a man that paved out aspects of the Italian Renaissance with his distinctive illustrative genius towards painting the female figure. Sandro Botticelli’s, Idealized Portrait of a Lady (allegedly, Simonetta Vespucci), Frankfurt, is tempura on wood, 82 x 54 cm, a size deemed atypical. (Schmitter, 6) This size portrait was considered more prominent than other standard portrait paintings in Quattrocento Florence. Another unusual aspect of this painting is that the woman faces her left, whereas, in most courted paintings, the woman faces to the right.
There is a stark contrast of colour opposing the black background, giving the appearance as if the woman is illuminated. Observing the woman’s face, her fair skin tone displays a smugness offered through her facial expression. There is a need to read between the lines with this painting, observe close enough and see that there is proud energy that indicates an opinion is brewing beneath the surface. Botticelli treated the hair lusciously, intricately braided with beaded pearls weaved throughout. A classic of Botticelli’s style, adding depth to a female figure through the excellent rendering of the hair. Something also to notice is how a set of braids comes out to the front and sits between her breasts. The medallion around her neck, displaying Greek symbolism, shows her underlining connection to money. It may represent a sense of ownership as it was known to correlate with the Medici family. (Schmitter, 8) The hints of red in the garment and the ribbon weaved within the braids compliments the reddish/blonde undertones in the hair. The beading and gold crown hairpiece create a wealthy aesthetic. She is filling the panel with larger-than-life antiquity fantastical dynamism.
When analyzing a Botticelli painting, most specifically the female figures – there is this unison feeling of woman as the treatment of the hair and face have a unique signature style. This piece has many embellished aspects that make me ask who she was. “Women with such hairstyles belong to an imaginary realm removed from standard social conventions.
Their presence is also more erotically charged. Loose hair was considered improper because it was sexually alluring.” (Schmitter, 6) There is speculation that this portrait of Simonetta Vespucci romanticized the woman as a nymph; the hair gives it away. Nymph, as per Merriam Webster Dictionary, is as such; 1: any of the minor divinities of nature in classical mythology represented as beautiful maidens dwelling in the mountains, forests, trees, and water. A nymph's other underlying meaning is to refer to her as sexually mature. “The language of the eye could be a sensual and hence feared, even repressed one.” (Simon, 22) There could be an instance in that Botticelli used the profile portrait to disguise the allure of this woman or to tease, instigating conversation within the context of the male gaze. If “visual language was a crucial mode of discourse” (Simon, 8), what was Botticelli’s goal or duty when painting this enigmatic woman? The profile portrait almost feels like we are staring at the woman from a distance, “open to scrutiny.”
Reading Simon’s essay, we learn that “the ‘emblematic significance’ of dress made possible the visible marking out of one’s parental and marital identity. A bearer of her natal inheritance and an emblem of her conjugal line once she had entered the latter’s boundaries, a woman was an adorned Other who was defined into existence when she entered patriarchal discourse primarily as an object of exchange.” (Simon, 9) This piece is unique because the woman's identification is simply speculative. A lover? If so, there is a sense of conflict as perhaps she acted more as a mistress than a maiden. Her jewels and crown insinuate that she does possess some wealth unless her worth was based on provocative private doings. The fixed gaze men had on this woman came through the repetitive portrayal. Perhaps she presented herself as a muse, as there is more than one portrait that assumes the mysterious identity of the young Simonetta Vespucci.
We repeatedly understand that women have been projected to fulfill the role most satisfying to the male gaze. This ultimately distorted the lens of women’s power in the part of the Other. “The body of this paper investigates the gaze in the display culture of Quattrocento Florence to explicate further ways in which the profile, presenting an averted eye and a face available to scrutiny, was suited to the representation of an ordered, chaste and decorous piece of property.” (p. 6) The sitter of Sandro Botticelli’s, Idealized Portrait of a Lady (allegedly, Simonetta Vespucci), Frankfurt – a type of painting reserved for more the regal, to-be-married kind of woman - as portrait painting reflects the same energy as coins, currency – is an interesting observation. To love a woman of the Renaissance was to invest in the woman. What did her presence bring to the table that caught the great Botticelli’s devotion? The connection to the Medici links to a scandalous moment of interest for the young Simonetta Vespucci.
Botticelli, Sandro. “Idealised Portrait of a Lady (Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Nymph).” Digital Collection. Städel Museum, January 1, 1480. https://sammlung.staedelmuseum.de/en/work/idealised-portrait-of-a-lady.
Lugli, Emanuele. “THE HAIR IS FULL OF SNARES: BOTTICELLI’S AND BOCCACCIO’S WAYWARD EROTIC GAZE.” Mitteilungen Des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz 61, no. 2 (2019): 203–33. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26922482.
Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “nymph,” accessed October 9, 2022, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nymph.
Patricia Simons, “Women in Frames: The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture.” History Workshop Journal 25 (1988): 4-30.
Schmitter, Monika. “Botticelli's Images of Simonetta Vespucci: Between Portrait and Ideal.” RUTGERS ART REVIEW, 1995.
