̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Renaissance

Digital resurrection: bringing one of Italy's most important lost churches back to life

ta385 — Mon, 03 Aug 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Art historians have created a new app which allows users to roam around one of Florence’s oldest and most important churches, San Pier Maggiore, 240 years after it was demolished.

When real men wore feathers

ta385 — Thu, 14 Feb 2019 10:45:00 +0000

Ostrich feathers are often associated with glamorous women but this wasn’t always the case. In the sixteenth century, it was Europe’s men who spearheaded this trend. Now experts in Cambridge and London have brought this forgotten moment in fashion history back to life by recreating a lavish headdress.

A feather in your cap: inside the symbolic universe of Renaissance Europe

tdk25 — Thu, 02 Nov 2017 08:50:40 +0000

Later, an eyewitness recalled that officials thought the Duchess had fainted at the sight of blood trickling from her husband’s mouth. Only the Archduke himself seemed to realise that she, too, had been hit. “Sophie dear! Don’t die! Stay alive for our children!” Franz Ferdinand pleaded. Then, “he seemed to sag down himself,” the witness remembered. “His plumed general’s hat… fell off; many of its green feathers were found all over the car floor.”

̽��ֱ��assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June 1914, had such seismic repercussions in precipitating the First World War that it is easy to disregard the curious little detail of feathers on the floor. In such context, they seem trivial. Rewind a few moments more, to the famous final photograph of the couple leaving Sarajevo town hall, and the plumage sprouting from the Archduke’s hat looks positively absurd; as if amid all the other mortal perils of that day – the bomb that narrowly missed his car, the bullets from a semi-automatic – he somehow also sustained a direct hit from a large bird.

Today, we generally associate feathers with women’s fashion, and a peculiarly ostentatious brand at that, reserved for Royal Ascot, high-society weddings and hen parties. Among men, wearing feathers is typically seen as provocatively effete – the domain of drag queens, or ageing, eyelinered devotees of the Manic Street Preachers.

Yet a cursory glance at military history shows that Franz Ferdinand was far from alone in his penchant for plumage. ̽��ֱ��Bersaglieri of the Italian Army, for example, still wear capercaillie feathers in their hats, while British fusiliers have a clipped plume called a hackle. Cavaliers in the English Civil War adorned their hats with ostrich feathers.

“Historically, feathers were an incredibly expressive accessory for men,” observes Cambridge historian Professor Ulinka Rublack. “Nobody has really looked at why this was the case. That’s a story that I want to tell.”

Rublack is beginning to study the use of featherwork in early modern fashion as part of a project called ‘Materialized Identities’, a collaboration between the Universities of Cambridge, Basel and Bern, and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

To the outsider, its preoccupations (her co-researchers are studying gold, glass and veils) might seem surprising. Yet such materials are not just mute artefacts; they sustained significant economies, craft expertise and, she says, “entered into rich dialogue with the humans who processed and used them”. Critically, they elicited emotions, moods and attitudes for both the wearer and the viewer. In this sense, they belonged to the ‘symbolic universe’ of communities long since dead. If we can understand such resonances, we come closer to knowing more about how it felt to be a part of that world.

Rublack has spotted that something unusual started to happen with feathers during the 16th century. In 1500, they were barely worn at all; 100 years later they had become an indispensable accessory for the Renaissance hipster set on achieving a ‘gallant’ look.

In prosperous trading centres, the locals started sporting hats bedecked with feathers from parrots, cranes and swallows. Headgear was manufactured so that feathers could be inserted more easily. By 1573, Plantin’s Flemish–French dictionary was even obliged to offer words to describe people who chose not to wear them, recommending such verbiage as: ‘the featherless’ and ‘unfeathered’.

Featherworking became big business. From Prague and Nuremberg to Paris and Madrid, people started to make a living from decorating feathers for clothing. Impressive efforts went into dyeing them. A 1548 recipe recommends using ashes, lead monoxide and river water to create a ‘very beautiful’ black, for example.

Why this happened will become clearer as the project develops. One crucial driver, however, was exploration – the discovery of new lands, especially in South America. Compared with many of the other species that early European colonists encountered, exotic birds could be captured, transported and kept with relative ease. Europe experienced a sudden ‘bird-craze’, as birds such as parrots became a relatively common sight on the continent’s largest markets.

Given the link with new territories and conquest, ruling elites wore feathers partly to express their power and reach. But there were also more complex reasons. In 1599, for example, Duke Frederick of Württemberg held a display at his court at which he personally appeared as ‘Lady America’, wearing a costume covered in exotic feathers. This was not just a symbol of power, but of cultural connectedness, Rublack suggests: “ ̽��ֱ��message seems to be that he was embracing the global in a duchy that was quite insular and territorial.”

Nor were feathers worn by the powerful alone. In 1530, a legislative assembly at Augsburg imposed restrictions on peasants and burghers adopting what it clearly felt should be an elite fashion. ̽��ֱ��measure did not last, perhaps because health manuals of the era recommended feathers as protecting the wearer from ‘bad’ air – cold, miasma, damp or excessive heat – all of which were regarded as hazardous. During the 1550s, Eleanor of Toledo had hats made from peacock feathers to protect her from the rain.

Gradually, feathers came to indicate that the wearer was healthy, civilised and cultured. Artists and musicians took to wearing them as a mark of subtlety and style. “They have a certain tactility that was seen to signal an artistic nature,” Rublack says.

Like most fads, this enthusiasm eventually wore off. By the mid-17th century, feathers were out of style, with one striking exception. Within the armies of Europe what was now becoming a ‘feminine’ fashion choice elsewhere remained an essential part of military costume.

Rublack thinks that there may have been several reasons for this strange contradiction. “It’s associated with the notion of graceful warfaring,” she says. “This was a period when there were no standing armies and it was hard to draft soldiers. One solution was to aestheticise the military, to make it seem graceful and powerful, rather than simply about killing.” Feathers became associated with the idea of an art of warfare.

They were also already a part of military garb among both native American peoples and those living in lands ruled by the Ottomans. Rublack believes that just as some of these cultures treated birds as gods, and therefore saw feathers as having a protective quality, European soldiers saw them as imparting noble passions, bravery and valiance.

In time, her research may therefore reveal a tension about the ongoing use of feathers in this unlikely context. “It has to do with a notion of masculinity achieved both through brutal killing, and the proper conduct of war as art,” she says. But, as she also notes, she is perhaps the first historian to have spotted the curious emotional resonance of feathers in military fashion at all. All this shows a sea-change in methodologies: historians now chart the ways in which our identities are shaped through deep connections with ‘stuff’. Further work is needed to understand how far these notions persisted by 1914 when, in his final moments, Franz Ferdinand left feathers scattered across the car floor.

Inset image: Hendrick Goltzius, soldier, c. 1580; credit: ̽��ֱ��Rijsmuseum, Amsterdam.

Today, feathers are an extravagant accessory in fashion; 500 years ago, however, they were used to constitute culture, artistry, good health and even courage in battle. This unlikely material is now part of a project that promises to tell us more not only about what happened in the past, but also about how it felt to be there.

Historically, feathers were an incredibly expressive accessory for men. Nobody has really looked at why this was the case. That’s a story that I want to tell.

Ulinka Rublack

Achille Beltrame

Assassination of the feather-hatted Archduke Franz Ferdinand

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Animating objects: what material culture can tell us about domestic devotions

amb206 — Tue, 24 Oct 2017 06:21:48 +0000

It’s an enduring irony of history that the most commonplace objects from the past are those least represented in today’s museum collections. ̽��ֱ��more precious and expensive an object, the more likely it is to have survived. As a result, our perceptions are skewed towards items that belonged to the rich and powerful – objects that were perhaps rarely handled.

During Madonnas and Miracles, a recent exhibition of religious material culture at the Fitzwilliam Museum, one of the most ‘stopped at’ items of the objects on show was an exquisite rock crystal rosary. It was clearly crafted for an individual of outstanding wealth and status. Each bead features a scene from the New Testament; the drawings are incised into a layer of gold. Not surprisingly, the rosary is today one of the treasures held by the Palazzo Madama Museum in Turin.

But also attracting attention was a much less eye-catching slip of paper printed on both sides with prayers in Latin. This breve would have been sold cheaply on the streets of Italian cities. Its frayed edges suggest that it was folded and worn close to the skin in the belief that the prayers would protect the wearer from a host of disasters – from earthquake to plague. Thousands of brevi were produced, and carried as talismans against misfortune, but few have survived.

In 2013, three Cambridge academics from different fields of scholarship came together to throw fresh light on the ways in which Renaissance Italians worshipped within the privacy of the home. Historian Professor Mary Laven, literary specialist Dr Abigail Brundin and art historian Professor Deborah Howard were determined to explore material culture from modest as well as wealthy households through their ambitious research project, Domestic Devotions: the Place of Piety in the Italian Domestic Home 1400–1600, funded by the European Research Council.

During the research, which informed Madonnas and Miracles and a forthcoming book, the three stepped out of the ‘golden triangle’ of Florence, Rome and Venice, the major hubs of cultural activity in the Renaissance, to look at material culture from further afield – in Naples, the Marche and the Venetian mainland. In doing so, their study makes an important contribution to our understanding of domestic religious practice across the Italian peninsula.

̽��ֱ��Renaissance is often seen as a secular, less religious age in which interest in antiquity encouraged a more rational way of seeing the world. But the evidence from material culture paints a different picture. “ ̽��ֱ��wealth of devotional images and artefacts that we have discovered in Renaissance homes encourages us to view the period 1400–1600 as a time of spiritual revitalisation,” says Laven.

Household inventories show how even a relatively modest family could create a special place for prayer and meditation by setting objects such as a crucifix, candlesticks, holy books and rosaries on a table or kneeling stool. As a reminder of divine protection, religious pictures or statues might be found almost anywhere in or around the house.

“Acts of devotion, from routine prayers to extraordinary religious experiences, such as miracles and visions, frequently took place in the home and were shaped to meet the demands of domestic life with all its ups and downs – from birth to death,” adds Laven. “ ̽��ֱ��tight bond between the domestic and the devotional can be seen in the material culture of the period – in paintings, ceramics and more. These objects tell us how closely daily life intersected with religious belief.”

Young women often asked the Virgin Mary for intercession during childbirth. Representations of the Madonna embracing her healthy son were a feature of many bedchambers – and not just those of the wealthy. ̽��ֱ��Fitzwilliam Museum holds an example of a rustic terracotta figure of a solemn-looking Madonna and Christ child who is portrayed holding his mother’s naked breast. This rare object exemplifies the type of lower-end production available to less well-off consumers.

Household objects acted as reminders to Renaissance parents of their duties, and the Holy Family was a powerful model of how a devout family should live. An early 16th-century maiolica inkstand in the Fitzwilliam collection, for instance, takes the form of a nativity scene: the infant Christ lies before an adoring Mary and Joseph while a cow and ass look over a stable door, their placidity testament to the wonder of the moment.

In Renaissance paintings, the Madonna appears as an ideal mother and educator – a compelling role model. “A painting of Virgin and child with John the Baptist by Pinturicchio, held by the Fitzwilliam, is a wonderful example,” says Howard. “It shows the Madonna teaching the young Jesus to read. Seated on her lap and encircled by her arms, he is perfectly absorbed in a book. Meanwhile, a boyish and pious John the Baptist provides a model for devotion by young children.”

Everyday objects could literally incorporate the sacred. An earthenware bowl in the Fitzwilliam Museum decorated with an image of the Madonna of Loreto bears around its rim the inscription: CON POL. DI S. CASA. This abbreviated Italian text tells us that the clay from which it was made contains dust (polvere) from the ‘holy house’ of the Virgin Mary, supposedly carried from Nazareth to Italy in the 13th century. Behind the Madonna is an outline of the Santa Casa with its tiled roof and bell tower.

At a time when much of the population was illiterate, owning devotional texts was important for surprisingly large swathes of the population. Even when closed, or unread, they exuded beauty and spiritual value within the domestic sphere. Brundin explains: “Sacred words, by their very presence, could provide protection. Some authors even advised writing the words of certain psalms on the walls to keep the family safe and as a reminder to pray regularly.”

Texts can offer clues to their owners. Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library holds a stunning hand-illustrated printed copy of the Meditation on the Life of Christ. Hand-written notes in its margins show that in 1528 it was given to a nun, Sister Alexia, by her uncle. Alexia’s annotations indicate that she read the work closely. She even added manicules (pointing fingers) next to passages of particular importance. ̽��ֱ��book was later owned by another nun, Teofila, whose own reading would have been guided by Alexia’s marks.

Objects accrue deeply personal meanings that are impossible to unravel fully. Careful investigation across disciplines can, however, offer a glimpse of the very human and very fragile hopes and fears embodied by objects, as Brundin explains: “A humble scrap of paper marked with a cross or a brief prayer, of no obvious artistic or literary merit, comes alive when we’re able to marry it with an archival record in which a devotee explains what it means to them.”

‘ ̽��ֱ��Sacred Home in Renaissance Italy’ by Abigail Brundin, Deborah Howard and Professor Mary Laven will be published by Oxford ̽��ֱ�� Press in 2018.

Inset image: This breve was probably folded and worn close to the skin around 500 years ago in the belief that the prayers would protect the wearer; Breve di S. Vincenzo Ferrerio contro la fibre, Civica Raccolta Stampe A. Bertarelli.

Rustic figurines of a resigned-looking Virgin clutching her child may have no obvious literary or artistic merit to us today. But understanding what they meant to the spiritual lives of their owners can offer a glimpse of the human hopes and fears that people have, for centuries, invested in inanimate objects.

̽��ֱ��tight bond between the domestic and the devotional can be seen in the material culture of the period – in paintings, ceramics and more. These objects tell us how closely daily life intersected with religious belief.

Mary Laven

Fitzwilliam Museum

This down-to-earth, glazed terracotta figurine of the Virgin could act as the focus of family prayers in a modest home

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Saving a renaissance masterpiece: Fitzwilliam Museum wins award for decade-long restoration

sjr81 — Fri, 19 May 2017 14:04:46 +0000

̽��ֱ��conservation work on Sebastiano de Piombo's (1485–1547) 'Adoration of the Shepherds' c.1510, one of the founding Renaissance works in the Fitzwilliam’s collections, won the restoration and conservation award at the 2017 Museum and Heritage Awards in London on Wednesday evening.

̽��ֱ��Judges said: “ ̽��ֱ��Restoration and Conservation award goes to a project which represents restoration at its very best – painstaking in its research and meticulous in its care attention, resulting in the rescue of a masterpiece.”

̽��ֱ��meticulous project was undertaken by the Fitzwilliam’s painting conservation department, the Hamilton Kerr Institute, and enabled the masterpiece to go on show at the museum for the first time in 70 years. ̽��ֱ��project was completed in the 40th anniversary year of the Hamilton Kerr Institute in time to return to the galleries in 2016 - in celebration of the Museum’s 200th birthday.

̽��ֱ��physical history of Sebastiano del Piombo’s Adoration of the Shepherds is remarkable and explains why the research and conservation project at the Hamilton Kerr Institute took so many years to complete.

̽��ֱ��picture was originally painted on a wooden panel, but while owned by the Duc de Orléans in 18th century Paris, the paint layers were removed and transferred onto canvas in a misguided attempt to preserve it. This caused widespread damage to the original paint and the composition was almost completely overpainted in subsequent attempts at restoration. However, critical areas of the original paint remained intact and it was decided to remove all the old overpainting and bring the composition back to life by judicious and specialised restoration of the losses.

Rupert Featherstone, Director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute said: “We have researched and unravelled the entire history of the painting, uncovering the original, from layers and layers of overpaint and varnish. Then we painstakingly reconstructed the missing areas, to faithfully recreate Sebastiano’s painting.”

In order to understand the artist’s technique, a microscopic particle of paint, smaller than the head of a pin, was taken from the Virgin’s blue robe and analysed under a microscope during research. Examination of the paint cross-section demonstrated Sebastiano’s sophisticated system of layering with an application of pink paint beneath the blue, as well as his use of superior and expensive pigments, such as ultramarine blue.

This and other forms of state-of-the-art analysis greatly helped to reconstruct the missing areas. Close study of an early full-size copy of Sebastiano’s original painting from ̽��ֱ��Louvre, Paris, made sometime in the late 16th or early 17th century – before Sebastiano’s painting was transferred from wood to canvas – was important in reconstructing areas of significant paint loss.

Added Featherstone: “We have conserved over 3,000 pictures in the last forty years at the HKI, but the Sebastiano is one of our biggest projects. Some might have argued to leave the painting as an archaeological relic, but I think we have made the right judgement to restore it so it can be appreciated as the masterpiece it is, aesthetically and historically. ̽��ֱ��scientific research that was conducted to aid our understanding of the technique of the artist has been key in being able to recreate it.”

Sebastiano del Piombo spent his early years in Venice where he learnt the art of painting under Giovanni Bellini (c.1431-1516) and then Giorgione (1477-1510). At the invitation of the prominent patron and Sienese banker Agostino Chigi (1466-1520), Sebastiano moved to Rome in 1511, just as Michelangelo (1475-1564) unveiled the first part of his decoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo and Sebastiano developed a close friendship, sharing drawings, ideas and designs.

̽��ֱ��Adoration of the Shepherds was painted soon after Sebastiano moved to Rome, and demonstrates the influence of Giorgione’s ̽��ֱ��Adoration of the Shepherds (National Gallery of Art, Washington) in its overall composition and Venetian colouring, but with a sense of Roman form gained from Michelangelo.

̽��ֱ��picture was considered to be by Giorgione when the founder of the Fitzwilliam, Lord Fitzwilliam, bought it after the French Revolution in 1800 at the sale in London of the Duc de Orléans’ collection. In 1913, it was attributed to Sebastiano on the basis of the fusion of elements characteristic of the Roman school – such as the monumental figures – and others more closely associated with Venetian painting, notably the rich colours and lyrical landscape background.

̽��ֱ��Hamilton Kerr Institute is one of the world’s leading centres for teaching and research into the conservation of easel paintings and historical painting techniques and materials. As a department of the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Institute has undertaken the conservation of paintings in its collections since its foundation forty years ago, and it also takes on conservation projects for other clients such as the Royal Collection and the National Trust.

̽��ֱ��riverside property was given to the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge for the Fitzwilliam Museum by the late Sir Hamilton Kerr (1903-74), previously the MP for Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��conservation of the painting has been partly funded by the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Marlay Group.

Sebastiano del Piombo’s Adoration of the Shepherds can now be seen in the Fitzwilliam’s Italian Gallery (7). A film about the restoration is available to view on YouTube.

A ten-year research and restoration project to save one of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s Renaissance masterpieces was rewarded with a major national accolade this week.

We have researched and unravelled the entire history of the painting.

Rupert Featherstone

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Virtual Florence: religious art is ‘restored’ to its original setting

amb206 — Thu, 10 Mar 2016 08:00:00 +0000

An exhibition at the National Gallery tells the story behind some of the most remarkable examples of religious art in its collections. Two large-scale paintings from the 14th and 15th centuries, which show scenes of the Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin, originated as altarpieces in the church in Florence called San Pier Maggiore (or Saint Peter Major, so named to distinguish it from other churches dedicated to the Apostle Peter in the city).

Until recently little has been know about San Pier Maggiore as the setting for these masterpieces. Once one of the city’s oldest and most important churches, it was demolished in the 1780s to make way for a market place. Now detective work has enabled a team of academics and curators to produce a virtual reconstruction of the church complete with its bell tower which would have been a prominent landmark.

As an important church, San Pier Maggiore had been endowed with splendid altarpieces, commissioned by rich patrons. Today these paintings are dispersed around the world. ̽��ֱ��National Gallery in London holds ̽��ֱ��Assumption of the Virgin, painted by Francesco Botticini in the 1470s and ̽��ֱ��Coronation of the Virgin, painted by Jacopo di Cione a century earlier.

̽��ֱ��exhibition at the National Gallery is accompanied by a short film which explains some of the challenges that faced the small team who undertook the virtual reconstruction.

Combining their skills were Dr Donal Cooper (Department of History of Art) and Professor Francois Penz (Department of Architecture) from Cambridge ̽��ֱ��, Dr Jennifer Sliwka, assistant curator in Renaissance painting at the National Gallery, and Dr Miguel Santa Clara, a film-maker and graduate of Cambridge’s Department of Architecture.

As an art historian of Renaissance Italy, Cooper knows Florence well. But when he arrived in the city in the hot summer of 2015 to begin the research, he felt disheartened. Walking around the area where the church once stood, he could see the arches of the elegant portico that was added to the church in the 17th century and a number of piers enveloped by later buildings. But there seemed to be few obvious clues to help create a clear picture.

“All I had to guide me were historic plans and maps which show more or less where the church stood. Today the area is a mix of small businesses and apartments with scooters whizzing through the portico arches,” he says. “Although street names indicated the former existence of the church, it was a real puzzle to imagine its ground plan and its structure – or to perceive where the paintings would have been situated.”

Cooper was joined in Florence by Penz, Santa Clara and Sliwka. ̽��ֱ��team’s fortunes began to change when they met café owner, Ricardo Camporesi, whose premises act as a hub for the local community. A flyer was distributed in the neighbourhood. It asked people to get in touch if they were willing to open their houses to the team. ̽��ֱ��response was overwhelmingly positive and the team was invited into several apartments and businesses.

“It was a mixture of archaeology and anthropology as we began to explore the elements of the church that exist within the present structures which had been wrapped around some of the remaining features of the church,” says Penz. “In a kitchen we found a chapel arch and in a bathroom a finely carved Renaissance column. One of the most exciting moments was when the owner of an apartment opened the door of an airing cupboard to show us some stone steps inside.”

̽��ֱ��spiral steps in the cupboard led upwards to a small roof terrace with a view over the city rooftops. ̽��ֱ��40 steps that remain today are part of a stairway that was originally inside a 14th-century bell tower or campanile.

Using a combination of site surveys and the latest photogrammetric techniques, the researchers have been able to create a visualisation of the church with the later buildings ‘wrapped’ around it. “We hope the 3D visualisation we’ve produced will help experts and the public to understand the context within which these paintings were experienced by Renaissance viewers,” says Cooper. “In museums they are removed from their intended architectural settings, which often informed their design and iconography.”

̽��ֱ��people of Florence were hugely enthusiastic about the project and the Florence edition of Il Corriere della sera carried a three-page article about it. But the team is keen to avoid the temptation of filling in the gaps in their visualisation.

“One of the key research aims was to visualise degrees of uncertainty in the 3D virtual representation of the church, reflecting a variety of hypotheses invariably present in art historical research of this nature. And this why we used the point cloud modelling technique that allows room for the imagination,” says Penz.

“Moreover, we see 3D visualisation as much more than the representation of research data. ̽��ֱ��process itself was a potent means for generating new findings that would not have emerged from conventional empirical research. But it is only the beginning and this pilot project has paved the way to more ambitious research projects in the future.”

̽��ֱ��project was funded by a Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme Research grant together with a Kress Foundation grant to the National Gallery.

Inset image: Campanile staircase photogrammetric reconstruction.

A team of experts has pieced together the architectural context of two treasures of Renaissance art in the National Gallery collection. ̽��ֱ��research behind the 3D-visualisation combines traditional and digital methods – and benefits from invaluable input from the local community.

One of the most exciting moments was when the owner of an apartment opened the door of an airing cupboard to show us some stone steps inside.

Francois Penz

Donal Cooper/Francois Penz

San Pier Maggiore revisualised in 3D with the pointcloud outline nestling within today's buildings

̽��ֱ��altarpieces of San Pier Maggiore

Jacopo di Cione’s polyptych, originally more than 5 m tall, was one of the largest altarpieces ever painted for a Florentine church. ̽��ֱ��central scene depicts the Virgin being crowned as Queen of Heaven by Christ. ̽��ֱ��so-called ‘Coronation of the Virgin’ was believed to have occurred at the Virgin’s death and Assumption into Heaven. ̽��ֱ��Virgin and Christ are surrounded by saints and angels, with pride of place given to St Peter, as the titular saint of the church. Jacopo painted the apostle holding not only his traditional attribute of the keys of heaven, but also a miniature representation of the church of San Pier Maggiore.

Botticini’s altarpiece also depicts the Virgin being crowned in heaven, albeit in a very different fashion, set amidst ascending circles of angels and with an expansive landscape showing Florence and the surrounding countryside filling the base of the picture.

In Cambridge, the Fitzwilliam Museum owns another painting from San Pier Maggiore. Tommaso Mazzuoli’s Visitation (1560) is on permanent loan to Trinity Hall where it serves as an altarpiece in the college chapel. Others paintings from the same Florence church are in Russia and the USA.

Inset image: Jacopo di Cione St Peter (detail).

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

How artisans used colour printing to add another dimension to woodcuts

amb206 — Thu, 21 Jan 2016 16:59:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��fearsome dragon is dead, its body contorted and mouth hanging open. Above it, a triumphant St George sits astride a splendid horse. He wears full armour, his legs thrust forward, spurs glinting and lance held high. Atop his helmet, impossibly elaborate plumes and feathers cascade upwards and outwards. In the background, a city perches on a mountain top, silhouetted against a glowering sky.

This opulent image, worked in black and gold on a blue background, is one of the earliest European examples of colour printing used in fine art. It was created in 1507 by Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553) at the request of his patron, Friedrich III, Elector of Saxony. Artisans working for Cranach, whose initials are worked into the design, used two wood blocks (black and gold) to print his masterful design of a horse and rider on to paper pre-painted with indigo. ̽��ֱ��medieval imagery contrasts with the strikingly modern Renaissance technology.

Cranach’s print is one of 31 German Renaissance woodcuts and a single drawing currently on display at the British Museum in an exhibition of early colour printing. All come from the British Museum’s collection but few have been shown to the public before. Together, they chart the ways in which advances in early print technology opened up new avenues for artists in creating a sense of movement, depth and opulence not possible in black and white.

̽��ֱ��exhibition German Renaissance Colour Woodcuts has been curated by Dr Elizabeth Savage (Faculty of English and Department of History of Art). Her pioneering research into archival collections in Germany and the UK, combined with her detailed grasp of the medium of woodblock printing, challenges accepted thinking about the use of colour in woodcuts, a craft-based technology associated almost exclusively with black-and-white or monochrome images.

When colour does appear in early woodcuts (for example St Dorothea and the Christ-Child, c.1450-1500) it has generally been applied by hand as a secondary process, often as a wash to draw attention to a significant aspect of the design. Given the considerable technical difficulties of colour printing using wood blocks, it was long assumed that colour printing did not develop on any significant scale until 1700, when Jakob Christoff Le Blon (1667-1741) invented a way to print all natural colours using only blue, red, yellow and black. His method became our CMYK: cyan, magenta, yellow, ‘key’ (black), following his order. Scholars thus assumed that early colour prints were extremely rare and judged them to be unrepresentative ‘outliers’.

Close analysis of colour images by Savage now reveals that, throughout the 1500s, thousands (and perhaps tens of thousands) of colour prints were in circulation in European countries. Furthermore, the range of colour woodblock prints in production varied from costly images, commissioned and collected by wealthy patrons, to more affordable ‘mass-produced’ prints designed to decorate the surfaces of furniture and the interiors of homes whose owners hankered after the latest styles of intarsia and marquetry – effects created by laborious and highly skilled inlay techniques.

One reason why so many colour prints have hidden in plain sight is that colour can be mistaken for paint. When the surfaces of prints are examined by an expert eye a different story may emerge. For instance, the pressure of the press often leaves tell-tale marks like indenting the design into the paper, forcing ‘ink squash’ into a raised outline, even giving the paper an almost sculptural relief. Savage collaborated with Gwen Riley Jones, a specialist in imaging gold at the ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester, to document the surface texture of the portrait of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1519) by Hans Weiditz (c.1500–c.1536). It can now be identified as the sixth image printed with gold in early modern Europe.

̽��ֱ��development of colour printing may have been technology-led, emerging from the workshops in the German cities of Augsburg and Strasbourg, among others, where competitive, innovative printers developed new ways to make their books stand out. But, in order to flourish, these advances required the backing of rich and powerful individuals whose status was closely tied to the conspicuous (and competitive) consumption of the latest in luxury goods, from textiles to prints.

“ ̽��ֱ��British Museum holds one of the world’s largest collections of colour prints, including unique examples from late medieval and early modern Germany. Early printers vied with each other to achieve stunning colouristic effects – 500 years before the advent of Photoshop,” says Savage. “We think of prints as being exactly repeatable black outlines on white paper, but some survive in many as 30 very different palettes. Their printers developed inks in royal blues, baby pinks, dusky oranges, lush greens, rich burgundies to create endless variety and unprecedented three-dimensional effects.”

Three prints, displayed side by side, illustrate how rivalry between members of the ruling elite stimulated important developments in colour printing. When in 1507 Friedrich III in Wittenberg sent images by Cranach of “knights printed from gold and silver” to his friend and competitor collector, the imperial advisor Konrad Peutinger in Augsburg, he created a friendly contest between two major artistic centres with artists and artisans stretching their skills to the limit in the quest for the most impressive image.

In response to the receipt of Cranach’s St George, Peutinger sent Friedrich a pair of larger colour woodcuts of St George and Maximillian I on horseback designed by Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473–1531). With these woodcuts, Peutinger demonstrated that his Augsburg artists and craftsmen were able to outdo Frederick’s ostentatious effort. “Friedrich and Peutinger’s glittering exchange jump-started colour printing on a scale that we are only now beginning to appreciate,” said Savage. “It’s mind-boggling that one of Peutinger’s technicians corresponded directly with the Holy Roman Emperor about colour printing. Like Cranach’s nearly 24-karat gold printing ink on flimsy paper, it suggests the incredible value of these vivid breakthroughs.”

That extraordinary, short-lived, pre-Reformation heyday is thought to be the whole story, but Savage’s research recasts it as a short chapter. Dozens of colour impressions of German prints were known, by just a few artists, from the 1510s. This exhibition hints at the thousands of colour prints, circulating in perhaps tens of thousands of impressions, which were made and used across Germany. Rather than dying out before the Reformation, later European adaptions attest that the craft knowledge and market demand survived for generations and even spread abroad.

All prints are team efforts, with the artist normally considered the main producer. In the exhibition curated by Savage, the printer is the star player. Two colour impressions by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and one by Hans Holbein (c.1497–1543) are on display, but neither ever designed a colour print. Instead, printers commissioned others to design and cut tone blocks to accompany the great masters’ ‘normal’ woodcuts. As a woodcut, Dürer’s portrait of Ulrich Varnbüler (1522) is a 16th-century German masterpiece; as a colour print, it’s a triumph of 17th-century Dutch marketing.

̽��ֱ��exhibition’s focus on printers, not artists, expands an apparently small and sporadic fine art movement into an ever-growing wave. Savage said: “People prayed with them, collected them, learned from them, decorated with them, upgraded cheap wooden furniture with them. Few were as stunning as Cranach’s golden, saintly knight, which is precisely the point. We’ve forgotten that colour woodcuts were normal, not exceptional, in the ‘golden age’ of print.”

German Renaissance Colour Woodcuts is on display in Room 90 on the fourth floor of the British Museum until Wednesday, 27 January 2016.

Inset images: Anonymous (German), St Dorothy of Caesarea and the Christ-child in an Apple Tree, c.1450-1500, British Museum 1895,0122.18, presented by William Mitchell © ̽��ֱ��Trustees of the British Museum and courtesy of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester; Attr. Hans Weiditz, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, 1519, British Museum 1862,0208.55 © ̽��ֱ��Trustees of the British Museum and courtesy of the Centre for Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, ̽��ֱ�� of Manchester; left: Albrecht Dürer, Ulrich Varnbüler, 1522, British Museum 1895,0122.739, presented by William Mitchell, centre and right: later editions printed with new tone blocks by Willem Jansz. Blaeu, c.1620, British Museum 1857,0613.345 and 1857,0613.345, © ̽��ֱ��Trustees of the British Museum.

An exhibition of early colour printing in Germany shines a light on the ways in which technology jump-started a revolution in image making. ̽��ֱ��British Museum show is curated by Dr Elizabeth Savage, whose research makes a radical contribution to an understanding of colour in woodcuts.

Friedrich and Peutinger’s glittering exchange jump-started colour printing on a scale that we are only now beginning to appreciate

Elizabeth Savage

Cranach George 1895,0122.264 37044001

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How we fell in love with shopping

sjr81 — Fri, 20 Mar 2015 09:49:34 +0000

Opening at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge on March 24, Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment features 300 stunning objects, each revealing the tastes and hopes of its owners and the skills of the hands that made them. Following different collections of items, we see how Europeans shopped and brought novelties into their lives and their homes.

̽��ֱ��exhibition takes us on a visual adventure through the decorative arts, starting with bespoke Renaissance luxuries made in glass, bronze and maiolica. ̽��ֱ��impact of global trade soon changed European habits and expectations. Shoppers were seduced by the glamour of the exotic; they lusted after eastern objects, Arab designs, and became obsessed with all things Chinese and Japanese. New world products like tea, chocolate and sugar, powered frenetic trade. Commerce led to constant innovation and new technologies. In a single generation the idea of luxury was flipped on its head from being the preserve of the elite, to a universal desire. ‘Populuxe’ – popular luxury – was born.

By the Enlightenment, objects that were displayed in the home and worn on the body had transformed the look and feel of the world, and allowed for the creation of masterpieces in silk and silver, pearwood and porcelain.

Treasured Possessions is intended to take visitors back to the bazaars and workshops of the distant past. Prints of city markets, illustrated trade-cards and figurines of vendors are set beside the wares themselves. From gorgeous silks, silverware, jewels and porcelains, via shoes, armour and embroideries, to snuffboxes, tea-pots, fans and pocket-watches, Treasured Possessions sets strange and extraordinary items alongside objects that we still use every day.

̽��ֱ��exhibition has been co-curated by Dr Victoria Avery of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and Dr Melissa Calaresu, Dr Mary Laven and Professor Ulinka Rublack from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Faculty of History.

Dr Laven said: “Today, we spend half our lives shopping, and many of our acquisitions end up on the scrap-heap or boxed away in a garage or attic. Before industrial mass production, purchasing took much more skill and effort, and was often the result of complex negotiations between maker and shopper. ̽��ֱ��most significant things in life were not bought and sold off the shelf, but were hand-crafted in homes and workshops, customized for their owners. Acquisition was an art.”

̽��ֱ��show also allows us a glimpse of the many hidden wonders that remain off-view in the vaults of our national museums due to lack of space in the public galleries. On the eve of the Fitzwilliam Museum’s 200 year anniversary in 2016, more than 80 per cent of exhibition’s objects are taken from its reserves. For the first time, visitors will be able to see some of the Fitzwilliam’s least-known treasures, from a silver pocket-watch shaped like a skull to the most fabulous pair of bright yellow embroidered high heels.

Treasured Possessions will be complemented by two companion exhibitions ‘Close-up and personal: eighteenth-century gold boxes from the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Collection’ (a loan show from the V&A) and ‘A Young Man's Progress’ by photographer Maisie Broadhead, a fictional modern narrative inspired by the costume-book of Matthäus Schwarz, a sixteenth-century German accountant, who recorded the clothes he wore throughout his life in what has become known as ' ̽��ֱ��First Book of Fashion'.

Treasured Possessions from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment runs from March 24 until September 6, 2015. Admission is free.

An exhibition of ‘treasured possessions’ from the 15th to the 18th centuries reveals how we first fell in love with shopping, and takes us back to an age when our belongings were made by hand and passed down through the generations.

̽��ֱ��most significant things in life were not bought and sold off the shelf, but were hand-crafted in homes and workshops...Acquisition was an art.

Mary Laven

Fitzwilliam Museum

Folding ‘Trompe l’oeil’ fan, English, c.1750

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