Sacred and Sensual Paintings
OPUS III Fumus Vitae
Format: Tondo
Year: 2024–2025
Dimensions: Ø 75 cm
Medium: Egg tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Frame: Custom-designed, fully handmade and water-gilded
(12 kt white gold leaf on Red Armenian Earth) by Edwin IJpeij
Fumus Vitae is a painting about what remains when time has already passed. The red candles in the candlestick are extinguished. There is no flame left to hold onto. What fills the space instead is the after presence of smoke, the soft evidence of something that was bright a moment ago and is now gone.
That shift matters. The scene is not about burning, but about aftermath. About youth as something that does not simply fade, but disappears, leaving traces in memory, in the body, in the way we look. With age comes loss, but also a different kind of clarity. Not louder, not more visible, but deeper. A quieter intelligence that settles in once the performance of youth is over.
The veil with pearls brings another register of meaning. Pearls can recall tears, prayer beads and bridal jewellery. They belong to ceremonies and thresholds. Here they suggest tenderness, protection and the weight of lived experience. The veil does not only conceal. It filters. It holds the figure slightly back, as if she is both present and already slipping away, suspended between intimacy and distance. The beauty in this work is not displayed. It is guarded.
Executed in egg tempera and oil on a circular marouflaged panel, Fumus Vitae invites slow looking. The round format encloses the image like a small reliquary, a contained world where light moves gently across skin, fabric and smoke. The frame is conceived as part of the work. Designed and made by the artist, it is entirely hand built and water gilded with twelve carat white gold leaf, matching the painting so closely that object and setting become one quiet presence.
Status: Not available
OPUS II Whispers of Temptation
OPUS I: The Forbidden Fruit
The Girl with the Mysterious Eyes
Year of Creation: 2019
Dimensions: 31 × 33 cm
Medium: Egg tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Frame: Handmade and water-gilded by Gregor’s Frames
La Fille aux Yeux Mystérieux is an intimate tronie capturing the presence of a young woman whose expression balances confidence, playfulness and quiet intrigue. Her eyes shift subtly between green and blue as the light moves across the surface, giving the portrait a dynamic, almost elusive quality. The slight turn of her head and the suggestion of a smile create a silent exchange with the viewer — a moment suspended between invitation and enigma. The portrait reveals character through restraint rather than drama, allowing her presence to unfold gradually. Status: In a major art collection in Belgium
Seinsuelle
Year of Creation: 2019
Dimensions: 31 × 33 cm
Medium: Egg tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Frame: Handmade and water-gilded by Gregor’s Frames
Seinsuelle is an intimate study of the feminine form, rendered with a refined interplay of black, white and red. The close composition heightens the sense of presence, drawing attention to the model’s quiet confidence and poised sensuality. With her hands resting on her thighs, the figure conveys strength, grace and unapologetic femininity. The work balances delicacy and intensity, revealing its allure through restraint rather than overt display. A contemporary exploration of intimacy, carried by the luminosity of hand-prepared tempera and oil. Status: Available
Venice Girl III
Year of Creation: 2018
Dimensions: 30 × 60 cm
Medium: Tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Venice Girl III continues the artist’s exploration of identity, transformation and the quiet strength of feminine sensuality. The red mask, both protective and revealing, becomes a symbol of self-acceptance—marking the moment where vulnerability and confidence converge. Her direct but gentle presence suggests a figure who has moved through doubt into clarity, allowing inner radiance to surpass outward appearance. The work invites a contemplative gaze, revealing its emotional depth through restraint, stillness and subtle shifts of light across the surface. Crafted on a French oak panel using Old Masters materials and methods—hand-prepared linen, egg tempera, oil and authentic pigments—the painting reflects IJpeij’s combined mastery as both artist and chemist. Status: In a major collection in London (UK)
Venice Girl II
Year of Creation: 2017–2018
Dimensions: 30 × 60 cm
Medium: Tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Venice Girl II continues the artist’s exploration of transformation and the evolving relationship between concealment and self-revelation. Still wearing the Venetian mask, the figure stands with a posture that suggests newfound assurance, a quiet shift from introspection toward emergence. The mask, once primarily a shield, now feels more like a remnant of an earlier state: a fragment of guardedness that lingers even as confidence begins to surface. The work captures this transitional moment with restraint, allowing the emotional progression to unfold subtly rather than overtly. Crafted on a French oak panel using traditional Old Masters materials, hand-prepared linen, egg tempera, oil and authentic pigments, the painting reflects IJpeij’s combined mastery as artist and chemist, giving the surface its characteristic depth and luminosity. Status: In a major collection in London (UK)
Venice Girl I
Year of Creation: 2017–2018
Dimensions: 30 × 60 cm
Medium: Tempera and oil on marouflated panel
Venice Girl I marks the beginning of a series exploring identity, vulnerability and the early stages of self-awareness. The Venetian mask, held close to her face, becomes both a shield and a threshold, suggesting a quiet inwardness, a moment of hesitation before revelation. Her hands partially obscuring her expression create a sense of introspection and restrained tension. Rather than resisting or confronting, the figure seems suspended in a delicate balance between concealment and emergence, capturing the fragile beginnings of transformation. Crafted on a French oak panel using traditional Old Masters materials, hand-prepared linen, egg tempera, oil and authentic pigments, the painting reflects IJpeij’s combined mastery as artist and chemist, giving the surface its luminosity and depth. Status: In a major collection, London (UK)
The Venice Girl triptych
The Venice Girl triptych traces a quiet, introspective journey across three stages of inner transformation.
Through the recurring motif of the Venetian mask, each work captures a different moment in the delicate shift between concealment and emergence. Where the first painting evokes hesitation and inwardness, the second reveals the beginnings of confidence, and the third approaches clarity and self-possession.
Rather than documenting change directly, the series allows transformation to unfold through posture, gesture and the subtle variations of light across the surface.
Together, the three paintings form a meditation on identity, vulnerability and the evolving presence of the feminine.
The Alchemy of Touch
Crafted with fine Flemish linen, sealed in twelve layers of gesso, and painted with rare pigments bound in egg and oil.
Every surface is a skin - luminous, layered, alive.
Backed by my knowledge as a chemist and the wisdom of the Old Masters, these works are made to endure - in time, and in you (for a more detailed description, please scroll down).
Made to Transform
Part of my Home Jewelry Collection, these paintings are created to ignite, not to blend in.
Each comes with a certificate of authenticity - and a silent promise:
You won’t forget what you’ve seen.
Have a question? Or interested in a commission?
Contact me, I’d be honoured.
A technique rooted in Old Master craft and chemistry
Before devoting himself fully to painting, Edwin worked as an inventor in molecular chemistry. That way of thinking never left the studio. Every stage of his process is designed to create a stable molecular bond between the layers so that the work can endure time, light and handling.
Support and gesso
Each painting starts with a wooden panel that is carefully sealed on both sides with animal glue. On this he mounts fine portrait linen from Flipts & Dobbels in Roeselare. West Flemish linen is among the finest available worldwide and forms a strong, flexible base.
Onto this support he applies twelve layers of traditional gesso, also based on animal glue and a precisely balanced mixture of two types of chalk. Each layer is sanded back, and after the final application the surface is polished to a smooth, luminous ground that still remains highly absorbent.
Imprimatura and underpainting
Edwin then lays in a broken, textured imprimatura in egg tempera, followed by the drawing, usually in conté. A tonal underpainting in egg tempera establishes light, shadow and volume. After a specific treatment to reduce the absorbency of the surface, he continues in oil, building a monochrome underpainting that determines the final balance of the composition.
Only when this structure feels resolved does he begin to model the flesh tones and colours in many thin layers of oil, allowing the light to travel through the paint film rather than sit on top of it.
From historical pigments to safer alchemy
In earlier years Edwin worked with traditional pigments such as lead white, genuine Naples yellow and vermilion. Drawing on his experience in chemistry, he has since developed modern combinations of existing pigments that emulate the optical qualities of these historic colours without their toxicity or long term risks, such as saponification in lead based paints.
The result is a painting surface that feels silky and alive, with a depth and luminosity that echo the Old Masters while meeting contemporary standards of safety and permanence.
Explore the roots of my journey, early works and oil painting studies await your discovery.