A link between Botticelli and the buses, unknown to art history, has emerged on the art market. You wait for ever and then two come along more or less together. One of the last great masterpieces by the Renaissance master will highlight Sothebys annual Masters Week sale series in New York later this month. The Man of Sorrows is estimated to make in excess of $40 million (€35.4 million). It is a late period work from a time when the artist was greatly influenced by the fanatical preaching of hellfire Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola. The most distinctive features are the frontal presentation of the stunningly modern human portrayal of the resurrected Christ and a halo of angels holding the instruments of the passion.
Works by Botticelli are exceedingly rare. In January 2021 Sotheby’s sold Sandro Botticelli’s Portrait of a Young Man Holding a Roundel for $92.2 million (€81.78 million). It is the most valuable Old Master painting ever sold at auction.
