Features
Pallas and the Centaur, one of the best-known Botticelli masterpieces in the Uffizi Gallery’s collections, will return to Japan after a hiatus of 34 years. Botticelli, who enjoyed the patronage of the Medici, a family celebrated for its vigorous support of the arts, is a painter closely associated with the Uffizi Gallery. Along with Pallas and the Centaur, which is thought to be produced for the Medici, the exhibition will also display his fresh and vibrant, early period Madonna and Child and works of strong individuality from his late years.
Paintings by the 16th-century painter Agnolo Bronzino will also be featured. Bronzino’s Allegory of Happiness executed on a small tin plate is a work of bright colors and delicately rendered figures. The painting’s composition, showing Justice, Prudence and Time standing guardian over Happiness, seated in the middle, is said to memorialize the happiness of Italy and the House of Medici. As we might expect of Bronzino, who worked for the Medici as a portraitist and enjoyed the favor of erudite courtiers, it is an allegorical painting that invites varying interpretation.