File:Portrait of a Lady, by Bernardino Luini.jpg

Identifier: fairwomeninpaint00shar (find matches)
Title: Fair women in painting and poetry
Year: 1894 (1890s)
Authors: Sharp, William, 1855-1905
Subjects: Women in literature Women in art Women Beauty, Personal
Publisher: London : Seeley New York : Macmillan
Contributing Library: Harold B. Lee Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brigham Young University

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As for the early Florentine ideal of female beauty, it seemsto me grotesque. Look at that lady there, famous in her own day forher looks and celebrated for ever by Angelo Politian and Pulci and otherFlorentine poets. Yes, she is la bella Simonetta, as you say. Thereis no fictitious flattery here. Giuliano de Medici was not the man tomake her his mistress unless she were considered pre-eminently beautiful.Have you seen her before, may I ask ? I think so. Did not Piero di Cosimo paint her ? Among thepictures belonging to a great French lord, the Due dAumale, atChantilly, there is a Cleopatra which is supposed to be this very Simonetta. Do you admire her greatly ? 1 Very remarkable, also, for this mysterious charm is the famous Wax Bust of a Girlin the Lille Museum, till recently always spoken of as by Raphael, but now recognisedas a Florentine work of the fifteenth century. An extraordinarily skilful reproductionof it on canvas by Mr. Sargent is now at the Grafton Gallery (May—July)./
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^Tcrrtra it ofa ,J.>a di/. FAIR WOMEN 53 Frankly, no. But see, who is that strange man to whom she isspeaking, and why does he turn away from her and every one else withso weary and distraught a look ? Can that be Piero ? No ; it is Alessandro Filipepi, who painted her—the great artistwhom doubtless you know better as Sandro Botticelli. You may not beaware that the divine Sandro became melancholy in his latter years, andwould have nothing to do with Art, or Fair Women, or any of theshows and vanities of the world. La bella Simonetta can only remindhim of a past he would fain forget. But see ! Here is a letter. I mayas well give it to you, so that it may be made known to men at last. As Parabosco spoke, he drew from his pocket an antique leathern caseoerfretted with thin silver traceries, and extracted from it a yellow sheetof paper, worn to the extreme of thinness. It was like the last leaf ofa poplar against the last sunset of autumn. What is this that you entrust to me ? I aske

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