William Blake Egg Tempera paintings

[Diane]

Hi there,

I went to the Tate Britain gallery today in London and while I was there I wanted to see some examples of ET paintings. I found William Blake had used ET for his paintings, but was disappointed with the colours. They looked really dark, almost black and the gold gilding he had used seemed to have flaked off. Does ET change like this over time and become black? One of the pictures was Ghost of a Flea (see link below for reference)

http://www.tate.org.uk/learning/work...n/cast_02.html

Has anyone else seen this happen?
Diane

PS Tate Britain is worth a visit if you are ever in London!