Page:Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, 1887, vol 1.djvu/250

 BOUCHER May 17, 1510. Florentine school; real name Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, but took nameofBot- ticelli from his master, a gold- smith, to whom he was appren- ticed. Studied painting with Fra Filippo Lippi, at whose death (1469) he was, says Vasari, the best master in Florence. He is the only contemporary whom Leonardo da Vinci mentions by name in his treatise on painting. The grace, sympathetic feel- ing, and imaginative quality of Sandro's work give it a greater hold upon the mind j than that of many painters who surpassed him in technical knowledge and in feeling for beauty. Student and illustrator of Dante, a reader of Boccaccio, with a taste for classical mythology, and of a serious turn of mind which brought him under the influ- ence of Savonarola, in the latter part of his life, this painter poet worked with genuine freshness of feeling. His art is always re- fined and elevated, though not altogether free from a na'ive mannerism whose quaint- ness gives it a peculiar charm. As an ex- ample of his Lippesque manner see the Madonna with Angels, Uffizi, painted about 1480, to which year belongs the fresco of St. Jerome, Ognissanti, Florence. The Adoration of the Magi, and the Fortitude, Uffizi, show the influence of Pollajuolo, who painted the series of Virtues to which the latter belongs, an influence which is also perceptible in the Calumny of Apelles, and the Birth of Venus, Uffizi. The Allegory of Spring, Florence Academy, illustrates the poetic side of Botticelli's art. Before 1484 he was called to Rome by Sixtus IV., and painted the frescos of the destruction of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram ; Moses smit- ing the Egyptian at the Well; and the Temptation of Christ, Sistine Chapel. Other works are four small pictures attrib- ] uted to Mantegna, Palazzo Adorno, Genoa ; Triumph of Chastity, Turin Gallery ; Judith, Holofernes found by his Sdldiers, Adoration of Magi, Uffizi, Florence ; Coronation of the Virgin, S. Jacopo di Ripoli, Florence ; Coronation of the Virgin, Florence Academy (1481-84); Madonnas, Pitti and Corsini Gal- leries, Florence, National Gallery, London, and Louvre, Paris ; Portraits, the Bella Simonetta, Pitti, portrait of a man, attrib- uted to Masaccio, Palazzo Corsini, Florence, and of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, Berlin ; Pieta, Munich; Nude Venus, Berlin; Nativity, Mars and Venus, Venus Reclining, Assumption, Na- tional Gallery, London; Adoration of the Magi, Hermitage, St. Petersburg. Whether Botticelli engraved any of the so-called play- ing cards which he designed is uncertain, but probably they, as well as his illustrations to the edition of Dante with Lan- dini's Commen- tary (1481), were engraved by Baldini. Vasari, ed. Mil., iii. 309 ; C. & C., Italy, ii. 413 ; Pater, Studies in the History of the Renaissance, 38; Burck- hardt, 544 ; Dohme, 2i ; Ldbke, Gesch. ital. Mai., i. 350. BOUCHER, FRANCOIS, born in Paris, Sept. 29, 1703, died there, May 30, 1770. French school ; history and genre paint- er, mostly self- taught ; attended three months the school of Le Moine, then em- ployed in draw- ing for engravers from his own compo- sitions or Wattelet's. In 1723 he obtained the first prize at the Academy and later went to Rome with Carle van Loo. Returning to Paris in 1731, was received into the Acade- my in 1734, became professor in 1737, di- rector in 1765, and after the death of Carle van Loo was appointed first painter to the 1S6