Traditional Tempera

Sources: Getty Art & Architecture Thesaurus: Tempera, National Gallery: Tempera, and National Gallery: Egg Tempera.

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  Paul Klee

  Klee combined oil and tempera in Around the Fish (1926), with symbols and a central fish against a dark ground. Pastorale (Rhythms) (1927) is tempera on canvas mounted on wood. Neither MoMA record specifies an egg binder, so these works should not automatically be called egg tempera.

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  Joan Miró

  The Met identifies tempera and oil together in Miró’s Painting (1927). Its record does not specify an egg binder, so the medium should remain identified as tempera rather than being narrowed to egg tempera. Here it is one component of a mixed-media painting on canvas.

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  Frida Kahlo

  MoMA records My Grandparents, My Parents, and I as oil and tempera on zinc, showing Kahlo’s use of two paints together on a metal support. The work combines a family-tree structure with autobiographical imagery. The museum does not specify the tempera binder.

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  Sandro Botticelli

  The Uffizi identifies Botticelli’s Primavera (c. 1480) as tempera grassa on wood, while The Birth of Venus is cataloged as tempera on canvas. These museum records document tempera across two supports but do not establish an egg-yolk binder, so the medium remains tempera rather than egg tempera.

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  Ben Shahn

  MoMA records Pacific Landscape as tempera on paper over composition board, and the Met identifies tempera in Death of a Miner. These works document Shahn’s use of tempera in socially engaged subjects and landscapes. The records do not name an egg binder, so the broader medium name should be retained.

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  Mark Tobey

  In Edge of August (1953), Tobey covered a large board with casein paint. Its fine, closely layered strokes form an all-over field without one dominant center. MoMA's medium record explicitly identifies casein, a paint bound with milk protein, rather than tempera or oil for this painting.

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  Alphonse Mucha

  The Mucha Foundation identifies The Slav Epic cycle No. 9 as egg tempera on canvas. The monumental cycle’s documented medium differs from the oil on canvas used for his portrait of Maude Adams and from the watercolor-and-gouache studies on paper. The foundation record names egg tempera specifically.

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  Francesco Clemente

  Guggenheim Bilbao lists tempera and oil on linen in Mother’s Room; the Städel Museum records the same combination in Tandoori Satori Nr. 15. These entries document tempera alongside oil in two of Clemente’s painted works, without describing it as a standalone medium.

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  Albrecht Dürer

  For comparison, The Albertina catalogs The Hare (1502) as watercolor and bodycolor, heightened with white. The sheet records Dürer’s close study of an animal through layered, highly controlled color. Because the catalog separates watercolor from bodycolor, the entry preserves both terms instead of treating the work as transparent watercolor alone.

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  Bernard Perlin

  The Smithsonian records Perlin’s The Farewell (1952) as casein on fiberboard. This entry documents casein on a rigid manufactured support and distinguishes the work from his oils on canvas. It records the medium in one figurative painting, not as a blanket description of his work.

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  Bridget Riley

  Fission (1962) is tempera on board, with black dots that compress toward the center to suggest the surface is buckling inward. MoMA lists the paint simply as tempera without an egg-binder specification; the precise graphic effect does not, by itself, establish which tempera recipe she used.

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  Caravaggio

  Technical analysis found egg tempera in white paint passages in The Supper at Emmaus and Boy Bitten by a Lizard, alongside walnut-oil paint. The finding applies to localized white passages, not to the paintings as a whole. This documents a localized use, not a medium for every Caravaggio painting.

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  Diego Rivera

  In The Flower Carrier, Rivera used tempera alongside oil on Masonite. The museum record identifies the mixed medium but does not specify an egg binder, so the broader term “tempera” is retained. This documented panel painting is distinct from the fresco technique used for his public murals.

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  Jacob Lawrence

  Lawrence used casein tempera across the sixty panels of The Migration Series, which MoMA catalogs as casein tempera on hardboard. The quick-setting, matte medium suits the coordinated color blocks and sharply bounded forms carrying the migration narrative. The panels were planned as one sustained sequence.

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  José Clemente Orozco

  LACMA catalogs Orozco’s Street Corner, Brick Building as tempera and oil on board. The object record documents tempera as part of his easel painting practice alongside the oils and frescoes for which he is better known; the museum does not identify an egg binder.

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  Konrad Lueg

  MoMA identifies Lueg’s Untitled (Uncle) (1965) as casein tempera on canvas. The museum record supports a casein-based tempera medium without specifying an egg binder. Lueg’s restrained image turns a familiar figure into a cool, matter-of-fact painting, tied to the early German Pop context of his work.

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  Leonardo da Vinci

  Leonardo’s The Last Supper was painted on a dry preparatory layer with a greasy tempera containing egg yolk, according to the Cenacolo Vinciano. Because he worked on dry plaster rather than into wet lime, the mural is not true fresco. The method raises distinct conservation challenges.

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  Lucia Di Luciano

  In Discontinuous Structural Articulation (1964), Di Luciano used black and white household emulsion paint on Masonite. The rigid support carries measured geometric forms, and the record identifies household emulsion as the paint. Its pared-back palette makes the surface and structure especially clear.

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  Marc Chagall

  For comparison, MoMA catalogs Chagall’s I and the Village (1911) as oil on canvas. Interlocking planes and remembered village imagery overlap in a large-scale composition, joining scenes from his life in Vitebsk to Parisian modernism. This work anchors oil as his principal medium for many finished paintings.

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  Marie Spartali Stillman

  The Delaware Art Museum catalogs tempera in Love’s Messenger but does not identify its binder, so the medium remains unspecified. The same work includes watercolor and gold paint, which the museum lists separately; this distinction avoids assuming egg tempera or treating the metallic paint as leaf.

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  Michelangelo

  The Uffizi identifies Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo (1505–06) as tempera grassa on wood. The museum record names the technique but does not specify an egg binder, so this is not narrowed to egg tempera. The tempera panel is distinct from the fresco process used for his architectural commissions.

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  Paul Ranson

  The Musée d’Orsay records Ranson’s Lustral as tempera on canvas. The catalog does not specify the binder, so the medium remains tempera rather than egg tempera. The work belongs to his decorative Symbolist practice, where simplified forms and patterned color organize a mythic subject.

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  Wassily Kandinsky

  Colored Sticks (1928) is varnished tempera on paperboard, while Green Accent (November 1935) combines tempera with oil on canvas. The Guggenheim's records do not specify an egg binder, so “tempera” should not be narrowed to egg tempera for these works.

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  Giorgio de Chirico

  The Fondazione records Self-Portrait in Armour (1948) as tempera and oil on canvas. The Wadsworth Atheneum records graphite and tempera on handmade paper in de Chirico’s 1929 costume design for Le Bal. Neither record specifies the binder or establishes tempera in his 1910s piazzas.

Sources: MoMA: The Migration Series; Whitney Museum: State Park; The Met: Government Bureau; Uffizi Galleries: Primavera; Smithsonian American Art Museum: Fear; MoMA: My Grandparents, My Parents, and I; Guggenheim: Colored Sticks.