Francesco di Antonio del Chierico painted the flesh with a subtle, but very effective technique. He used the bare parchment as the base flesh tone.
He sketched the putti with lead-point and then outlined them in grey-black ink. Allowing the creamy parchment to show through, he shaded faces and bodies with a pale wash of a diluted salmon-coloured flesh tone (earth pigments mixed with lead white). He added opaque lead white highlights and small details in an organic pink or violet.
