The National Gallery has a long tradition of exhibiting and publishing the results of the technical examination of paintings. This new title in the Art in the Making series displays the Gallerys important research into the underdrawings of the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century paintings. These preliminary drawings beneath the paint layers can often be revealed by the technique of infrared reflectography an area of study in which the Gallery has played a leading role. The book explains the principles of infrared photography and reflectography, what each method can reveal, and how the resulting image should be interpreted. Essays on the role of underdrawing in the painters workshop, and on the materials and techniques employed, are followed by individual entries on the underdrawings in paints by major artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, among them Raphael, Giorgione, Cosmio Tura, Carl Crivelli, Hans Memling, Lucas Cranach, Albrect Altdorfer and Pieter Bruegel. The authors trace the function of underdrawing in the evolution of paintings produced in Italy, the Low Countries and Germany in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They discuss the relationship between surviving drawings on paper and the underdrawings revealed on panels and canvases, as well as the use of patterns and other means of mechanical transfer, and the relationship with prints of the period. The characteristics of underdrawings, from creative scribbles to dotted outlines, are discussed in the contest of the materials used to produce them - which include paints, inks, chalks, charcoal and metalpoint. - Back cover.