Flora
Francesco Melzi, 1520
Flora is an oil painting by Francesco Melzi, a pupil of Leonardo da Vinci, dated around 1520 and now in the Hermitage. The seated figure, set in a grotto surrounded by ferns and ivy, embodies the Roman goddess of spring and flowers, a subject widely treated during the Renaissance. Her lowered eyes and restrained smile, together with the soft sfumato modelling, recall Leonardo's language, which is why the work is grouped among the Leonardeschi. The botanical details carry symbolic meaning: columbine suggests fertility, white jasmine purity, anemones rebirth and wind, and ivy eternity. For a long time the picture was given to other followers of Leonardo, until stylistic comparison and, in 1963, traces of a signature strengthened the attribution to Melzi. Technical studies also showed that the blue mantle was painted with genuine ultramarine, an expensive pigment, which points to the high standing of the workshop.
- Painter
- Francesco Melzi
- Date
- 1520
- Medium
- oil paint
- Dimensions
- 76 × 63 cm
- Museum
- Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg
- Genre
- mythological painting
