#angels

This is one panel out of four on what happens after you die — the other three are a lot less pleasant, and they were probably the wings of something bigger that's since been broken up. Wikipedia says not everyone is convinced he painted them at all.

The whole chapel this sits in was paid for by a banker's son — supposedly to make up for the money his father made lending at interest, which the Church counted as a sin at the time. It's one panel out of a whole wall of them telling the story in order, so it was never meant to be looked at on its own.

Story goes this was a two-person job - an older workshop master and one of his apprentices - and the apprentice's angel on the left came out so much better that the older one supposedly quit painting for good after that.