Botticelli Drawings

The Legion of Honor at the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco presents what is – perhaps rather suprisingly – the first exhibition to be dedicated to Sandro Botticelli’s drawings (19 November–11 February 2024). Botticelli may have been known as one of the most esteemed painters of his generation, but drawing played a foundational role in his practice. Featuring rarely seen and newly-attributed works, the show offers insights into the process behind paintings such as Adoration of the Magi (c. 1500), which is reunited with its preparatory drawings from the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Morgan Library in New York, as well as The Virgin and the Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1468–80), on loan from the Musée du Louvre, which is also displayed alongside earlier sketches. Find out more on the FAMSF’s website.

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Head of a Man in Near Profile Looking Left (c. 1468–70), Sandro Botticelli. Christ Church, Oxford

The Virgin and the Child with the Young Saint John the Baptist (c. 1468), Sandro Botticelli. Musée du Louvre, Paris. Photo: Tony Querrec; © RMN-Grand Palais