Israel Medical Association Journal

Adoration of the Shepherds is one of the favorite subjects of sacred scripture by many artists. For almost 5 centuries they have published their vision of unique moments. The largest number of paintings were completed during the 16th and 17th centuries, with approximately 160 paintings created in the 16th century and approximately 420 in the 17th century. I was able to find two publications about pathological conditions of shephards that were diagnosed by artwork analysis. They include nodular goiter in Simone Veneziano Peterzano's works (1578–1582) [1] and Down syndrome in Jacob Jordaens' artwork (1618) [2]. In one of paintings, my attention was drawn to the change in the neck of one of the members of the Holy Family, St. Joseph.

La Bella Simonetta was one of the nicknames for a young Florentine woman named Simonetta Cattaneo Vespucci, who became a symbol of female beauty. She was praised not only for her physical beauty but also to her intelligence and education. She admired the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano, and the outstanding poets and artists close to them. These Renaissance intellectuals wanted to create a painting of ideal female beauty against the backdrop of poverty of Florentine women, many of whom were slaves or subsisted on prostitution [1]. One of the ideas was the portraits of Simonetta, painted by Sandro Botticelli. Names of the artist, portrait models, and the canvases refer to the period of the Italian Renaissance of art and poetry and great geographical discovery.

The portraits of mothers of artists are a distinct genre of female portrait art. Whereas most female portraits were commissioned, the mother portraits were the painter's initiative and reflection of sentiments. In several portraits of the mothers of artists, in particular Rembrandt’s paintings, age-related changes are depicted by the masters and their contemporaries. To some extent, they explain the feelings of James Abbott McNeil Whistler, expressed by the color pattern of the title of his mother portrait, Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.