Venus, goddess of love, born from the sea, glides to shore on an enormous scallop shell. On the left, the winds blow her in, surrounded by drifting roses. On the right, a figure hurries to wrap her in a cloak embroidered with flowers.

Botticelli painted it in Florence in the 1480s, probably for a member of the powerful Medici circle. It was one of the first large paintings since antiquity to show a mythological female nude as its main subject.

It doesn't try to be realistic. Venus's neck is too long and her pose physically impossible. Her hair floats in golden ribbons. It is a vision of beauty as something weightless — which is exactly why it still looks like a dream five centuries later.