Pick of the week
My sometime stablemate in , Prof Norman Hammond, has sent me an interesting suggestion regarding the Botticelli portrait () sold by Sotheby's for £66.6 million (). He writes: ‘The roundel () looks to me as though it may be a miniature/micro mosaic, from the bold dark folds in the saint's robe. Although such micro-mosaics are famed from the Grand Tour period, they go back at least to the 14th century-there's a splendid example about 30cm high (12in) at the Dionysiou monastery on Mount Athos, again of a saint. I wonder if Botticelli's subject is displaying a proud acquisition from an eastward tour?'
