The artist had prepared his tints upon a table with a large slate for the top: they consisted of terra vert, smalt, vermilion, yellow ochre, Roman ochre, darker ochre, Venetian red, umber, burnt umber, and black. These colours were all pure, mixed with water only, and rather stiff. He mixed each tint as he wanted it, adding to each from a pot of pure lime, or from one containing a very pale flesh tint. A lump of umber served to try his colours on. He used a resting-stick with cotton on the top to prevent injury to the prepared wall, or _intonaco_, as the Italians call it. The moment this surface would bear touching, the artist began to work upon the figure, the outline of which had just been traced. The head was that of the Virgin. The artist began with a pale tint of yellow round the head for the glory: he then laid in the head and neck with a pale flesh colour, and the masses of drapery round the head and shoulders with a middle tint, and with brown and black in the shadows. He next, with terra vert and white, threw in the cool tints of the face; then with a pale tint of umber and white, modelled in the features, covered with the same tint the part where the hair was to be seen, and also indicated the folds of the white veil. All this time he used the colours as thin as we do in water colours; he touched the intonaco with great tenderness, and allowed ten minutes to elapse before touching the same spot a second time. He now brought his coloured study, which stood on an easel near him, and began to model the features, and to throw in the shades with greater accuracy. He put colour in the cheeks, and put in the mouth slightly, then shaded the hair and drapery, deepening always with the same colours, which became darker and darker every time they were applied, as would be the case on paper for instance. Having worked for half an hour, he made a halt for ten minutes, during which time he occupied himself in mixing darker tints, and then began finishing, loading the lights, and using the colours much stiffer, and putting down his touches with precision and firmness: he softened with a brush with a little water in it. Another rest of ten minutes; but by this time he had nearly finished the head and shoulders of his figure, which being uniformly wet, looked exactly like a picture in oil, and the colours seemed blended with equal facility. Referring again to the oil study, he put in some few light touches in the hair, again heightened generally in the lights, touched too into the darks, threw a little white into the yellow round the head, and this portion of his composition was finished, all in about an hour and a half. This was rapid work, but it will be noticed that the artist rested four times, so as to allow the wet to be sufficiently absorbed into the wall to allow him to repass over his work. He now required an addition to the intonaco; the tracing was again lifted up to the ceiling, and the space to be covered being marked by the