Thank God for Sandro Botticelli’s Idealized Portrait of a Lady because there are definitely not enough portraits of idealized women in the world. No, sir.

Another problem with this painting is that this woman, Simonetta Vespucci, definitely did not need idealizing. She was viewed as the most beautiful woman in Europe and pretty much everyone who saw her fell in love with her. She was married to Marco Vespucci by the time she was sixteen years old. She then moved to Florentine court with her husband where she became super popular, catching the eye of all the dudes in Florence. Unfortunately for poor Simonetta, her family used her beauty as a way to attain more social status and wealth. When Simonetta caught the eye of Giuliano de Medici, he made a super public display of affection in the form of a painted banner of her as Athena with the caption that basically said she was the hottest thing anyone had ever seen. Her father-in-law , Piero Vespucci, used this incident to his advantage and basically gave Simonetta to Giuliano de Medici as a lover in exchange for political favors. He was the worst and the a year later Simonetta died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-three. Simonetta, who by then had an almost cult-like following, had a celebrity funeral. Her open casket was carried through the streets of Florence for everyone to see.

Then it became the hot new thing to paint her posthumously. She may or may not have ever sat for Botticelli while she was alive, but the two had definitely met as she lived on the same street where Botticelli kept his studio. Like in a carved cameo jewel of Ancient Rome, this painting puts Simonetta against a black background (just like the one on her necklace) with her chest slightly turned towards the viewer. There is nothing else in the portrait to distract us from her beauty. She is in the perfect portrait position, because how else are we supposed to gaze on her?