Work in progress.

Madonna dell'Umiltà Monaco, after Masolino da Panicale (1385)

24 carat gold leaf, egg tempera on gesso board

8 x 10 inches

Masolino da Panicale was a Florentine artist during the Renaissance. He joined the Florentine Guild  Arte dei Medici e Speziali (Doctors and Apothecaries), which included painters as an independent branch. It is said that he may have been the first artist to create oil paintings in the 1420s, before Jan van Eyck in the 1430s.

He was selected by Pope Martin V on the return of the Papacy to Rome in 1420 to paint the altar piece for his family chapel in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore.

The photo shows the completion of the “verdaccio” built up in several layers to create a tonal under painting - a technique that developed from the icon tradition. The subsequent stages will involve applying the colour in oil paint.