Italian Early Renaissance Painter, 1445-1510 Italian painter and draughtsman. In his lifetime he was one of the most esteemed painters in Italy, enjoying the patronage of the leading families of Florence, in particular the Medici and their banking clients. He was summoned to take part in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, was highly commended by diplomatic agents to Ludovico Sforza in Milan and Isabella d Este in Mantua and also received enthusiastic praise from the famous mathematician Luca Pacioli and the humanist poet Ugolino Verino. By the time of his death, however, Botticelli s reputation was already waning. He was overshadowed first by the advent of what Vasari called the maniera devota, a new style by Perugino, Francesco Francia and the young Raphael, whose new and humanly affective sentiment, infused atmospheric effects and sweet colourism took Italy by storm; he was then eclipsed with the establishment immediately afterwards of the High Renaissance style, which Vasari called the modern manner, in the paintings of Michelangelo and the mature works of Raphael in the Vatican. From that time his name virtually disappeared until the reassessment of his reputation that gathered momentum in the 1890s
Study of two standing figures
1475 Metal point on primed paper, white highlights, 165 x 100 mm Mus?e des Beaux-Arts, Lille This study is one of the few remaining drawings directly related to a painting by Botticelli. The artist, who to judge by the style may have been Botticelli's student Filippino Lippi, was testing the posture and stance of the two young men who can be seen at the front left in the Adoration of the Magi. There are differences in the head and hand positions of the figure at the rear, so that it is likely that this work was produced as part of the preparations for that group of figures