Every entry is a commission: what was ordered, on what terms, and by whom.
Almost nothing was painted speculatively. A contract named the subject, the figures, the materials, the size, the price, the schedule and the penalty — and reading one tells you more about the painting than most catalogue entries.
Filed by commission type, with the terms attached: subject and figures, the master's own hand, materials and grade, size and carpentry, price and staging, term and penalty, approval and arbitration.
| Commission type | What was ordered | Terms attached | Section |
|---|---|---|---|
| An altarpiece for a chapel altar | Panel, frame and predella for an altar that already existed | Size and Carpentry · Subject and Figures, Specified · Gold by Weight | The Contract |
| A cycle for a nave bay | A narrative in registers, fitted to the bays and the sightlines | A Cycle for a Nave Bay · The Clock in the Plaster · Price, and Paid in Stages | On the Wall |
| A painter retained by the month | A salary rather than a price, and duties beyond pictures | A Painter Retained by the Month · The Master's Own Hand · Term and Penalty | The Workshop |
| A burial chapel, walls and altar together | A whole space commissioned as one programme | A Burial Chapel, Walls and Altar Together · Patronage Was Local Before It Was Anything Else · Approval and Arbitration | The Patron |
| A patron saint for a shared pillar | A modest commission in a space owned by several trades | A Patron Saint for a Shared Pillar · Subject and Figures, Specified · Grades, and the Cheaper Blue | The Patron |
| The refectory wall | An image of a meal for a hall where a community ate | The Refectory Wall · What Was Added Dry · Egg, Then Oil | On the Wall |
Rows are commission types, not works.Every entry is reachable from Sections.
Ultramarine came from lapis and cost more than gold in some contracts, so it was specified by weight and grade in the agreement itself. Why the Virgin's robe is the most expensive object in the painting.
Read the entry
What a painting contract settled, clause by clause. Each term opens the entry that follows it.
Which episode, which saints, in what order, and where the donors kneel.
The passages the signatory had to paint himself, usually heads and hands.
Grade of blue and weight of gold, sometimes bought by the patron directly.
Dimensions to fit an existing altar, and who paid the woodworker.
Advance, interim payments against progress, balance on acceptance.
A completion date tied to an occasion, with a deduction if it slipped.
Who judged the finished work, and the third party called when they disagreed.
Five standing sections, twenty-four entries. See them all.
Almost nothing was painted speculatively. A contract named the subject, the figures, the materials, the size, the price, the schedule and the penalty — and reading one tells you more about the painting than most catalogue entries.
How precisely the content was dictated, down to which saints appear and where they stand.
Deadlines with money attached. What happened when a painter overran, and how often they did.
Ultramarine came from lapis and cost more than gold in some contracts, so it was specified by weight and grade in the agreement itself. Why the Virgin's robe is the most expensive object in the painting.
Leaf specified in the contract, applied over bole, and burnished. An accounting line as much as a decorative choice.
Azurite where ultramarine was unaffordable. How to see the substitution and what it says about the budget.
Contracts routinely specified which parts the master had to paint himself. Why that clause existed, and what it tells us about how a workshop actually divided a picture.
Drapery, background, architecture — the hierarchy of the workshop written into the surface.
Full-size drawings transferred by pricked outline and charcoal dust. Repeatability as a workshop technology.
Fresco has to be finished while the plaster is damp, so the wall is divided into a day's work at a time. The giornate are still visible, and they map the painter's actual working rhythm.
The red underdrawing on the rough coat, revealed when frescoes are detached. What it shows that the finished surface hides.
Pigments that could not survive the lime went on afterwards — and are the first things to be lost.
Confraternities, guilds and families commissioning for a chapel they used. Most of this art was made for a room its patrons stood in every week.
Commissioning a whole space rather than an object, and what that does to the programme.
Small commissions in shared spaces — the ordinary end of the market that rarely reaches a museum.
Patrons, workshops, and institutions keeping this corner of art history open.
Evil Angel Transexuals — craft that true connoisseurs clock at once.
VOYR is the raw footage Rhyheim turns into something worth keeping.
FTMMen presents masculinity recast entirely in its own medium.
Work Me Harder understands the atelier ran on desire, not wages.
Dare Dorm captures what happens when nobody is watching the master.
GenderX Films documents beauty the old guilds never had words for.
Sweetheart Video frames intimacy the way a patron frames a devotional.
JoyMii treats connection the way fresco treats pigment — it sets fast.
Couple Swapping rewrites who holds the brush mid-commission.
Proud Pervs performs where the piazza always drew the crowd.
Family Dick opens the doors most floor plans leave unmarked.
NFBusty knows a generous form was always worth commissioning.
Sis Loves Me proves charm gets further than a signed contract.Six surfaces and tools that the entries keep returning to.
