Saint Ursula with Angels and Donor (detail) 1455

Benozzo Gozzoli painted this panel of Saint Ursula with Angels and Donor in the mid-fifteenth century using tempera on wood. Look closely and you will see that the colors are vivid but also softly graded. That’s because tempera paint consists of pigment bound with egg yolk. This allowed Gozzoli to build up many thin layers of paint, creating luminous effects. Gozzoli also employed gold leaf, seen here in Saint Ursula’s halo and the background pattern. This painstaking process would have involved applying adhesive size to the panel, carefully laying the gold leaf, and then burnishing it to a high shine. Think about the time and skill required to produce such a work. Gozzoli’s patrons valued not just the image itself, but the artistry embedded in the materials and the process. That’s something to keep in mind, when we consider the relationship between art and labor.