Preliminary Examination of the Painting

	Three wooden planks are secured to horizontal crossbars by long iron nails driven through the front of the planks prior to painting.
A layer of ground was applied over the wood surface.
	Incision lines can be seen on the surface of the painting matching the contours of the different forms within the composition. This indicates that a preliminary plan might have been transferred from an actual-size drawn cartoon on paper onto the ground layer by tracing the lines with a sharp tool.
	Next a layer of red bole was applied to the areas that were to be gilded.
	Gold leaf was applied to the desired areas and decorated with different punching tools, forming indented designs.
The paint layer was executed with a characteristically medieval technique of crosshatched brushstrokes; and the binding media could possibly be egg tempera.
Pigments commonly used in 15th-century Spain were: lead white, yellow ochre, lead tin yellow, orpiment, vermilion, red lead, red earths, red lake, natural ultramarine, azurite, indigo, green earth, verdigris, copper resinate, carbon black, and bone black. However, at this time no analytical examination of the materials has been done on this painting. Analytical tests such as microscopy will be conducted over the course of this project.
Conclusion: Over time, this painting has deteriorated in many ways. In the past, flaking paint was consolidated with special adhesives and lost areas of paint were retouched. These old repaints have aged differently than the original paint layer, and now they appear discolored and do not match the surrounding original paint. The surface of the panel has an uneven gloss. This painting is being conserved to restore its aesthetic integrity and legibility.

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