Ground Layers in European Painting 1550-1750

Most of the papers in this volume were presented at the CATS international technical art history conference in June 2019 titled Mobility Creates Masters – Discovering Artists’ Grounds 1550-1700, which explored the introduction of, and change to, the colored ground layers in European paintings form the Early Modern period. The title of the conference stemmed from the desire to instigate new research projects within the topic of the influence of artists’ mobility on material choices and techniques related to the preparation of paintings. As well as contributions presented at the conference, this volume includes additional papers from recent research exploring the same topic. The volume begins with several studies on the documentation of grounds. The contributions are then arranged according to the country in which the painter was active, from southern Europe moving northwards.

The lavishly illustrated contributions in this volume deal with the above questions and shed light on different methods of preparing painting supports, the purpose of preparatory layers, materials used in different countries and influence of shifts in fashion or availability of materials on ground layers.

This fifth CATS Proceedings will be of interest to scholars and students, and museum professionals including curators, conservators, art historians and conservation scientists.