... also believed in setting up a dialogue between his new works and those which first inspired them, in the previous decades dominated by Donatello's energetic and dynamic sculpture and the "sweet style" patronised by Luca della Robbia (and in painting by Fra' Filippo Lippi). Avery's assessment that Verrocchio's works were entirely original and 'owed nothing' to the example of others is not without foundation, since some of Verrocchio's sculptural works were truly innovative, however it can also be seen that he did rely heavily on the precedent of particularly Donatello and that he most certainly owed something to the earlier sculptors which inspired his fusion of the two distinct styles. Perhaps the one example of Verrocchio's sculpture which displays the most telling fusion of the earlier "sweet style" and the dynamism of Donatello is a rather unlikely and small commission which never saw its final use as a fountain in ...

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