The Return of the Nude

In the 1850s the nude had largely disappeared from the walls of contemporary art exhibitions, but mainly as the result of the work of Aesthetic painters, it returned to artistic practice in the 1860s.

One of the primary sources of inspiration was the rediscovery amongst this new group of painters of the work of Botticelli. It was not long before the adjective 'Botticellian' was applied to aesthetes with modern sophisticated tastes.

Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (c.1486)