The Portrait of Smeralda Brandini is a tempera on panel painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli of about 1475, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London . The identification of the sitter is based on the old, but probably not original, inscription on the windowsill at the bottom of the picture Smeralda di M.Bandinelli Moglie di VI Bandinelli, who has been identified as the grandmother of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli. It is likely that the inscription was added at a later date, as the sculptor only took that surname in 1530. On the evidence of the inscription, the... portrait may be of Esmeralda Donati Brandini, the wife of Viviano Brandini, mother of the prominent Florentine goldsmith Michelangelo de Viviano de Brandini of Gaiuole, and grandmother of the sculptor Baccio Bandinelli . From archive documents it is known that in 1469 Smeralda was 30; her husband Viviano 38; their children Michelangelo 12, Giovanbatista 2, and Lucrezia 10. It has been suggested that the portrait was painted by one of Botticelli's assistants during the 1470s.
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