Boticelli to replace Raphael in Moscow
Another masterpiece of Italian Renaissance, painting by Sandro Botticelli " Pallas and Centaur" is coming to please the eyes of Muscovites. Starting from May 14, the great master`s painting will be displayed at the State Pushkin Museum.
Botticelli`s "Pallas and the Centaur" housed at Uffizi Gallery in Florence will replace "Lady with a Unicorn" by Raphael Santi from the Borghese Gallery in Rome, which has been on display in Moscow since March 24 and will leave the Pushkin Museum on May 10.
The display of Boticelli`s work continues the series of mono-exhibitions of Italian masterpieces in Moscow, the next initiative within the Russia-Italy Cross-cultural Year.
The famous "Pallas and the Centaur" depicts a lady dressed in flower-laced dress and dark green cloak, armed with a halberd and holding an obedient centaur by its hair. This plot has been numerously reinterpreted by art critics and historians. The most widespread interpretation says that it symbolizes chastity constraining voluptuousness. Altogether in this painting the great master has pictured the constant conflict of reason and desires.
Art historians assume that this painting could have been a wedding gift from the Florentine governor Lorenzo de Medici to his cousin Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco.
"Pallas and the Centaur" will stay in Moscow through to July 17.
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