The story of how Dante Gabriel Rossetti tinted the hair of an influential Botticelli painting has been rubbished by art historians at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The pre-Raphaelite artist, who was obsessed with redheads, has long been rumoured to have reddened the hair in Botticelli’s Portrait of a Lady known as Smeralda Bandinelli, above.
Rossetti admitted in a letter to a friend that he had altered the headdress in 1867, when he bought the painting, leading scholars to believe that he had painted over the hair too.
Red hair would have been a controversial choice in Botticelli’s time because it was linked with witchcraft and sexual desire.
An investigation by the V&A has revealed that the red hue was caused by the varnish discolouring, and the subject was originally “a typical Venetian blonde”. The painting will be a centrepiece in the V&A’s show Botticelli Reimagined next year.