Sandro Botticelli, The Birth of Venus (image in the public domain)

Why Egg Tempera Is So Special

When we think of painting, oil and acrylic often come to mind. Yet one of the oldest and most enduring mediums is egg tempera—a technique that has captivated artists and collectors for centuries. Its story is as rich as the artworks it produces.

An Ancient Medium With Timeless Qualities

egg tempera is made by combining pure pigments with egg yolk and water. This simple recipe, used since antiquity and perfected during the Renaissance, produces a paint that dries quickly, layer by layer. Each stroke is permanent, creating a luminous surface with a distinctive matte glow. Unlike oil, which can yellow or crack, egg tempera retains its clarity and brilliance for centuries—many medieval and Renaissance works still appear fresh today.

The Beauty Of Precision And Patience

Because tempera dries almost instantly, artists cannot blend as they would with oils. Instead, they build up forms through fine strokes, crosshatching, and delicate layering. This requires patience and discipline, yet rewards the viewer with subtle shifts of light, color, and texture that feel both intimate and enduring. For collectors, tempera paintings embody not only beauty but also craftsmanship and devotion.

Why It Is Rare Today

Few artists today choose egg tempera. It is time-intensive, requires fresh preparation for each session, and demands a steadiness of hand and vision. This rarity makes contemporary tempera works stand out—each painting carries with it both historical resonance and contemporary individuality.

Miriam Vlaming And Egg Tempera

German painter Miriam Vlaming embraces egg tempera precisely because of these qualities. She values its fragile luminosity and layered depth, using the medium to echo her central themes of vulnerability, transience, and the uncertainty of human experience. In her hands, egg tempera becomes more than a historical technique—it becomes a metaphor. Just as the medium requires countless delicate layers to form an image, her paintings invite us to piece together fragmented memories, shifting emotions, and fleeting states of being.

Miriam Vlaming, Before the Dawn, egg tempera on canvas

A Living Link To The Past And Present

What makes egg tempera so special is its ability to bridge eras. It connects us to Renaissance masters like Botticelli, while giving contemporary artists like Vlaming a language to express modern questions about identity and impermanence. For collectors, an egg tempera painting is not only a rare object but also a piece of living history—timeless in material, yet profoundly relevant in meaning.

Miriam Vlaming's Berlin studio showing pigments she mixes for her egg tempera