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Sandro Botticelli was an Italian painter from the days of the early Renaissance. His reputation, like many of his counterparts, has gone down and back up hill through history – much like South Delhi, where one of his originals is vacationing right now.
After its temporary welcome stay at the city’s Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, Madonna and Child (1490) is now in Humayun's Tomb Museum as part of the exhibition One Mother, Many Mother Tongues. The painting is the first time a Botticelli has ever been shown in India. Last year, the Italian Embassy brought a glorious Caravaggio painting for the first time in India. We sense a standard being maintained as India and Italy continue to strengthen their diplomatic ties, which incidentally themselves outdate Botticelli and the Renaissance, of course. And while there's the caveat of the difficulty of bringing even a singular painting abroad in safety, it brings with it the kind of stark historical focus that Delhi's public museums are best known for in homegrown exhibits.
About the painting
This particular work belongs to the later phase of Botticelli's career, after the Medici commissions, after some of his best known works, after his part to play in the Sistine Chapel. The painter had, by 1490, turned inward: producing devotional works for private patrons.
His figures are still idealised, though, more to the grain of Rome’s time than, say, Caravaggio’s. But that only makes a more compelling case for why you should see Madonna and Child – it promises a peek into something more historically popular. Botticelli painted the subjects, Virgin Mary and Jesus, often, but something otherworldly remains in each of his renditions. Find out which in this one for yourself.
We'd advise visiting after sunset, given the heat. The surrounding exhibition, and Sunder Nursery at large with its trails and cafes, can only ever add to the appeal, and you might as well make a whole evening out of it.
When: Until August 6. 10am-9pm. Last entry at 8pm.
Where: Sunder Nursery Humayun World Heritage Site Museum, Nizamuddin, New Delhi, Delhi 110013