The Birth of Venus
Botticelli's image of the goddess Venus rising fully grown from a giant scallop shell — the canonical 'beauty arriving' picture.
Origin
Sandro Botticelli painted it around 1485 for the Medici family in Florence. The composition shows Venus standing on a shell at the moment she reaches shore, with the wind god Zephyrus blowing her in from the left and a nymph waiting to drape her with a robe on the right. It was an unusually large mythological nude for the period, painted on canvas rather than wood, and now hangs in the Uffizi.
Modern usage
The shell-rising pose is endlessly recreated in fashion shoots, music videos (Beyoncé, Lady Gaga), and ads. The painting is the visual shorthand for any kind of dramatic, ceremonial entrance — particularly of a woman framed by attendants. 'Coming out of the shell' as a phrase has its own origin, but everyone pictures Botticelli.
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