"Sandro Botticelli, Alessandro Filipepi dit Botticelli (attrinué a), Étude de tête féminine (Pallas-Minerve), n. 27"

[Machine translation] In the sheet, the author deals with the difficult drawing inv. n. WA1863.613 from the collection of the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford, attributed to Sandro Botticelli and depicting on the front a 'Study for a female head', on the reverse: 'Study for a female figure' (Pallade-Minerva). The sheet is in fact placed in a complex and articulated relationship with one of Botticelli's most important portrait works, namely the 'Allegorical Female Figure' on panel (Frankfurt am Main, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. n. 936) dating from around 1485. The subject depicted is also related to a series of other allegorical female portraits executed by the painter or in any case in his workshop (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, inv. no. 106A; London, The National Gallery, inv. no. 2082; Tokyo, private collection, Marubeni Inc., 65 x 44 cm.). The sheet investigates not only the autograph, but above all, the function of the sheet as a preparatory study or rather, 'preliminary' or, as a 'study da' in use in Botticelli's workshop, probably having, like other drawings of this type, an important role in the process of elaborating derivations, starting from studies from the master's hand model. On a methodological level, particular attention is paid to the execution technique of the sheet as an important key to understanding the work.