Lucrezia Tornabuoni, for whom he painted it, was a very remarkable woman, not only a good mother to her children and a good wife to Piero, but a poet and exemplar.

She survived Piero by thirteen years and her son Giuliano by five.

Botticelli painted her portrait, which is now in Berlin.
These pictures are the principal work of Botticelli's first period, which coincides with the five years of Piero's rule and the period of mourning for him.
He next appears in what many of his admirers find his most fascinating mood, as a joyous allegorist, the picture of Venus rising from the sea in this room, the "Primavera" which we shall see at the Accademia, and the "Mars and Venus" in our National Gallery, belonging to this epoch.

But in order to understand them we must again go to history.

Piero was succeeded in 1469 by his son Lorenzo the Magnificent, who continued his father's friendship for the young painter, now twenty-two years of age.