Painting
The Birth of Venus
Sandro Botticelli, c. 1485
Show the style
Renaissance · chronological order 5
Where to see it
Uffizi Gallery
Florence · Italy
Tempera on canvas, 172 × 278 cm, painted by Sandro Botticelli around 1485, probably commissioned by the Medici for one of their villas at Castello. Venus arrives on the shore of Cyprus on a shell after being born from the sea, blown in by the wind Zephyr and met by a female figure (probably one of the Horae) holding out a cloak. The source was a poem by Angelo Poliziano reworking an ancient text. It hangs in the Uffizi in Florence.