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Along with creating some of the most beautiful and famous works of art in Western history, the “Old Masters” such as Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Sandro Botticelli also have another thing in common: they loved using eggs in their paintings.
More specifically, the artists would mix in egg yolks into their paints to create a medium called egg tempera. This technique dates back to ancient Egypt and can be found on many of the paintings from the Old Masters such as Boticelli’s “Birth of Venus.”
We know this because contemporary analysis of the compositions of their paintings reveal that there are added proteins to the works of art. While the reason why they used egg yolks has long eluded us, a new study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications might reveal why.
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