Madonna in Glory with Seraphim

This Madonna in Glory with Seraphim from circa 1469 at the Uffizi is among Botticelli's earliest surviving works, painted when he was around twenty-five and still absorbing the lessons of his training under Filippo Lippi. The composition places the Virgin surrounded by seraphim—the highest order of angels—in a gold-ground devotional format that maintains the Byzantine-influenced tradition of Florentine panel painting while beginning to introduce the spatial and figural naturalism of the new Renaissance approach. The work documents Botticelli's formation and allows comparison with his mature style: the figure types, the treatment of the face, and the handling of drapery already anticipate his later work while showing him still within the workshop tradition of his teacher.

The early work already shows Botticelli's characteristic attention to flowing line and rhythmic drapery, the seraphim surrounding the Madonna rendered with the decorative elegance that would become his hallmark.