Abrahamca. 1408–10
Lorenzo Monaco painted this in about 1408–10, aged about 38. It is now at The Met in New York. More about this work
About this work
Lorenzo Monaco painted this in about 1408–10, aged about 38. It is now at The Met in New York.
How it was made
- Gold ground
- Gold leaf laid over a red clay and burnished to a mirror shine, often tooled with punches so it flickers in candlelight. Behind sacred figures it stands for heavenly light.
- Tempera
- Pigment bound with egg yolk. It dries in minutes and can’t be blended wet, so painters built up form with fine, hatched strokes. It was Europe’s main panel technique before oil.
Lorenzo Monaco
Italian, Florence (?) ca. 1370–1425 Florence (?)
Lorenzo Monaco, “Lorenzo the Monk”, took vows at the Camaldolese monastery of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence, a centre of manuscript illumination. As both illuminator and panel painter, he became the leading painter in Florence in the early fifteenth century, with sinuous, elongated figures, flowing drapery and intense, jewel-like colour. His altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, now in the Uffizi, shows the International Gothic style at its most refined.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 65.14.1
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
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More by Lorenzo Monaco
All their works
Close in colour
