This painting is an egg tempera painting with gold leaf on the panel. Tempera is a fast drying painting medium that consists of pigments mixed with often egg yolk and water. Since tempera dries really quickly it is applied in thin semi opaque layers. This painting style was very popular throughout Europe. Back when this painting was created there was not an abundance of materials to create certain pigments. While the pigments within the painting are not known entirely, one of the pigments often used to get the blue color behind Christ in this painting is known as Lapis Lazuli. Lapis Lazuli is most commonly found in Afghanistan and had to be traded for. This shows that the Venetian Republic had a very strong role in global .
The other piece of this painting is the gold leaf on the panel. Gold leaf consists of hammered down thin sheets of gold that are then glued onto the surface. In this painting the thin sheets of gold are hammered onto the wooden frame. In works of art gold often demonstrated preciousness and a connection to divinity. Individual artists tended to use different thicknesses of gold leaf, however each artist remained constant in the thickness they used. This means that the thickness of gold leaf can serve as a calling card for the artist and help identify who painted certain paintings. Gold leaf often came from the Ghanian region of Africa suggesting that the Venetian Republic also engaged in trade with the Gold Coast.
