Petrus, his students and an attendant with a flask of urine c. 1500

Editor: So, this is an anonymous piece called "Petrus, his students and an attendant with a flask of urine," currently housed at Harvard Art Museums. The detail in the figures' robes and the flasks is quite striking. What draws your eye when you examine this work? Curator: I'm interested in the materials themselves. What sort of inks were used to achieve these colors? How did the social status of the anonymous artist affect the availability of these materials, and how might that have impacted the final product? Editor: That’s a perspective I hadn't considered. It makes me think about the labor involved in even acquiring the pigments. Curator: Exactly. And what does it say about the consumption of knowledge and medicine at the time that such a scene was deemed worthy of artistic representation, regardless of the artist's name? It's all intertwined.