Botticelli had painted a Madonna and Child with Young Saint John and Two Angels in about 1468 in a style clearly based on those of his mentor Lippi and the fashionable Verrocchio.

This early work indicates Botticelli's understanding of Lippi's ability to endow fleshy, firmly modeled figures with suavity and grace.

By 1470, Botticelli has his own workshop.

Even at this early date, his work is characterized by a conception of the figure as if seen in low relief, drawn with clear contours, and minimizing strong contrasts of light and shadow which would indicate fully modeled forms.

In Botticelli's first documented work, Fortitude, painted in 1470, he attempts to bring his youthful manner into line with that of Verrocchio, conveying in Fortitude’s posture the tension, and in her draperies, the sharp contrast of light and dark, that often characterize the work of an artist influenced by a painter-sculptor.

Botticelli also includes details of classical ornament and displays a characteristically precise attention to reflections and textures.