Paint and Its Surface
Roman Egypt
Portrait of a young woman in red
90–120 CE
Encaustic on limewood with gold leaf, 38.1 × 18.4 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
A Met study (published by the Getty) identifies the paint as pigment in beeswax, laid straight onto a sliver of linden wood only millimeters thick, with no ground.
- Its colors: lead white, iron ochres, a see-through red lake for the garment and gold leaf; a copper pigment darkens the shadows of the face.
- Look around the nose and under the lower lip: parallel marks left by a heated tool.
Concepts
Image: The Met Open Access (via Wikimedia Commons) · CC0