Topsy-turvy

When Tom Birkin, hero of J.L. Carr’s novel A Month in the Country, wakes from sleeping in the sun, it is to a vision: the vicar’s wife Alice Keach in a wide-brimmed straw hat, a rose tucked into the ribbon. ‘Her neck was uncovered to the bosom and, immediately, I was reminded of Botticelli — not his Venus — the Primavera. It was partly her wonderfully oval face and partly the easy way she stood. I’d seen enough paintings to know beauty when I saw it and, in this out of the way place, here it was before me.’

So universally recognised are Sandro Botticelli’s two most famous paintings, we can immediately picture the vicar’s lovely wife: mild, tempera features, loose, fair hair, a Yorkshire ‘Primavera’ as much a part of the North Riding landscape as Ribston Pippin apple blossom or oxeye daisies.

The instant familiarity of Botticelli’s two Renaissance belles is the starting point for the V&A’s Botticelli Reimagined.