Papers on various aspects of dyes and dyeing presented at the annual meeting of the Dyes in History and Archaeology group.

A volume dedicated to the memory of Helmut Schweppe. Papers presented at the 19th annual meeting on Dyes in History and Archaeology, held at the Royal Museum, National Museums of Scotland, Edinburgh in October 2000.

Papers on various aspects of dyes and dyeing presented at the annual meeting of the Dyes in History and Archaeology group.

This volume arose from papers presented at the 21st annual meeting on Dyes in History and Archaeology, held in Avignon in 2002, and is the latest in a series. The twenty-three papers include topics such as dyestuff analysis, chromatographic and spectroscopic differentiation of insect dyes, a new HPLC-PDA method, indigo-reducing bacteria, archaeology and dyeing traditions in West Africa, Chinese Green, structure of anthraquinone-aluminum complexes, etc.

The papers in this volume discuss the situation of artists during the early age of industrialization in several European countries, the benefits and challenges that the new materials brought to artistic practice and their effect on the ways in which techniques were taught in the art academies. For innovative artists the new materials were significant, but others were skeptical of the new industrial products and there was a struggle towards the standardization and documentation of working processes, paints and even aesthetic concepts.

Proceedings of a conference hosted by the Department of Conservation and Scientific Research at the British Museum on the application of scanning electron microscopy and microanalysis (SEM-EDX) to the study of materials, manufacturing methods and deterioration processes of objects from ancient through to contemporary cultures.

Medieval painting was a craft. The anonymous Montpellier Liber diversarum arcium (‘Book of various arts’) is a handbook prescribing how that craft was to be practiced. It contains over five hundred art-technological instructions or ‘recipes’ in Latin. Unlike the vast majority of medieval artists’ recipe books, this content is highly structured and organised, such as to form a complete handbook or course on painting. This Liber diversarum arcium is probably the most substantial and comprehensive medieval painters’ technical recipe book to survive. It summarises the state-of-the art in the European workshops of the fourteenth century. This volume makes the Liber diversarum arcium usable to modern readers for the first time, by restoring the text in over 150 places where its corruption obscures the technical sense, by translating the text into English, and by providing a running commentary to explain the technical processes and technical terminology.

This simple handbook aims to enable readers to make their own lake pigments or dye their own textiles using dyes from naturally occurring raw materials in a simple way under relatively controlled conditions and using recipes optimized for easy use in the laboratory or indeed the classroom. The book provides the basic principles of dying and lake pigment making (using the term lake pigment in its original, historical, sense indicating a naturally occurring dye precipitated onto a conventional usually white substrate, frequently a form of hydrated alumina) and from these the reader can try modifying the conditions or the amount of raw material, for example, to obtain different results. Suggestions for simple modifications are given.

This book is an exciting pan-European art detective scenario investigating four Netherlandish paintings from the 16th century. The busy compositions all present Christ chasing the moneylenders from the temple and reuse popular iconography influenced by the famous painters Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The researchers – art historians, conservators and scientists – use Technical Art History, a new and exciting approach which combines art historical and conservation research with scientific analysis, to unravel all the stories presented in these fascinating paintings, taking the viewer back to the 16th century, into the artist’s studio and to the stories told.

A forum (the papers of which are published here) was held in Oslo in 2010 to gather ideas, seek advice and, in general, begin to shape the onward decision-making process for a new project known as After the Black Death: Painting and Polychrome Sculpture in Norway, 1350-1550. The forum was the first step towards gaining intellectual access to altarpieces, shrines, sculptures and crucifixes for which little (if any) historical documentary evidence has survived. Significantly, too, the forum was a step toward addressing issues related to visibility. While the frontals and sculpture that pre-date 1350 are, with few exceptions, the products of Norwegian, probably monastic workshops, the majority of objects that post-date the Black Death have no such claim to a unifying cultural tradition. By contrast, the majority are categorized as the products of North German and Netherlandish workshops that were imported to Norway prior to the Reformation.

This is the English language edition of El Poder de los Colores by Gabriela Siracusano, published by Fondo de Cultura Economica, Buenos Aires 2005 – the result of a study of cultural practices related to the uses of coloring materials in the South American Andean region during the Colonial period (XVI to XVIII centuries) and their ‘powerful’ presence in the images of the Conquest. It offers the reader a new insight into the techniques and use of colour in Andean Colonial painting. Starting with an analysis of the images and the concept of representation during the process of evangelization/domination, the book shows the discursive and iconographic strategies used by different parties to achieve several goals through the use of color. The book’s main hypothesis is that colors were silent protagonists of the Andean ritual system, a fact that was identified only by certain ‘idol exterminators’ who tried to ‘rebrand’ them by giving them a Christian meaning.

The primary aim of the ATSR Working Group is to establish a focus for historical documentary source research and reconstructions on art materials and techniques. Documentary source research is often an essential component of conservation research, or art historical research. Reconstructions, a natural follow-on from the collection of information on materials and their use, can form an invaluable tool. This publication is a collection of papers from the third symposium of the Art Technological Source Research Working Group held in 2008. The papers centre on the exploration of artists’ practice from a wide range of disciplines and periods, as recorded in visual and written testimonies; from treatises and manuals to correspondence, ledgers, diaries and journals, as well as images such as paintings, prints, photographs and film.

This lavishly illustrated work is a valuable reference not only to conservators, but also to owners, curators and collection managers who may not have access to specialist advice “in house”, and to a wider audience of all those with an interest in cultural heritage and in preserving it for future generations to enjoy.

Since the two Giant Buddhas at the Bamiyan site in Afghanistan were tragically ravaged in March 2001, international specialists from Japan, Germany and Italy, under the coordination of UNESCO, have continuously cooperated in support of conservation projects to preserve the cultural heritage in Bamiyan.

Following conservation work on mural paintings and archeological research commenced on the Buddhist caves in 2005 to understand and document the current situation of the caves and their architectural features.

This monograph reports on these field studies which aim to further understanding of and support for Japanese conservation activities on international cultural properties.

This book explores issues around the production of cloth in the Andean region and its use in Andean societies. Where possible, the book focuses on Andean textiles from a weaver’s point of view, through the various tasks and processes in their making, and the manifold ways in which the ideas about a finished textile product refer back continually to these prior processes. Recent intellectual developments on the productive chain of weaving are taken into account, specifically on the human dimension of this in the operative chain (chaîne opératoire) of the textile domain. By working from the productive chain backwards, it is possible to trace and define the processes which led to the material makeup of a certain piece. In this way it is possible to make more convincing links between the materials or colors used during the productive processes and the finished museum object.

Turquoise in Mexico and North America presents the history and cultural use of turquoise in these areas. Contributions address the meanings and significance of turquoise in its archaeological, historical and ethnographic dimensions by bringing together the expertise of museum curators and scientists from a variety of disciplines from Mexico, North America and Europe.

The extraordinary life of Barbara Cartlidge (b. 1922 in Berlin) – influential gallerist, curator, jewelry artist and author – together with the history of her legendary Electrum Gallery, which she founded in 1971 with Ralph Turner in London, are documented for the first time in a single publication. Pioneers and colleagues as well as around seventy internationally renowned artists of the gallery all have their say and, in anecdotes and recollections, countless illustrations and hitherto unpublished images, tell of a strong and resolute woman and the significance of her gallery as a promoter and platform for the understanding of contemporary art jewelry. Particular attention is paid to the life of Barbara Cartlidge, who fled from Germany in 1938. For over fifty years she was a driving force in what she described as the ‘the brotherhood of jewelers who make modern and thought-provoking jewelry all over the world’.

Follow these Canadian artists as they travel abroad and return home again, over a series of journeys taking place during the last decades of the nineteenth century to the turn of the twentieth. 130 masterworks by some 35 artists situate Canadian art within the global phenomenon of Impressionism and present a fresh perspective on its reception in the arts of Canada. Adopting a thematic approach, comprehensive essays demonstrate the commitment of these pioneering artists to an innovative interpretation of foreign and familiar surroundings, imbued with an Impressionist vocabulary.

Heinz Siery was one of the most important personalities in the field of ceramics design in the 1950s and 1960s. His design forms significantly shaped the style of the products of companies such as Fohr, Scheurich, Carstens and Ruscha. Ingrid Siery also began her artistic career in the ceramics industry. She designed decorative objects for Georg Schmider and Carstens and oversaw the design department at the Wächtersbach earthenware factory. Since 1969, the artist couple have been working independently in their own Syré atelier. Apart from commissioned work such as designing tiled stoves and ceramic wall decorations, they also create their own works, such as figural sculptures made of bronze, whose simplicity and elegance have fascinated the couple from the beginning. They have created sleek sculptures with a minimalist, classical form and clear lines that are reminiscent of Henry Moore and Joannis Avramidis. Their atelier near Euskirchen houses a sculpture park and more than 300 of the couple’s works – it is in itself a work of art reflecting the artistic life of Ingrid and Heinz Siery.

Text in English and German.

Because money was no object, Surimono usually used the finest materials and printing techniques. Most consisted of a picture combined with related poems, and the arrangement of the illustration and the calligraphic text was often very beautifully designed. Exquisite in design and technique and usually small in size, Surimono have been described as ‘jewels of Japanese printmaking’ and have great visual appeal. Despite this, this will be the first time that the Ashmolean’s collection of surimono, mostly from the Jennings-Spalding Gift and containing a number of rare and previously unpublished prints, has ever been catalogued.

Miami and the Keys are the cultural and geographical gateways to the United States; where Latin America gracefully blends into North America, and land embraces the sea. This unusual guide leads you along the fulcrum that is Miami and the Keys, laden with world-class architecture, sandy beaches, pristine waters, nightclubs, and trendy hotels. Beneath the well-polished surface lies a history and culture that strays far from the conventional, bubbling up through unexpected places, like a coral fortress built for a spurned lover, a divey laundromat that serves the sweetest café con leche you’ve ever had, or an enclave of houses built on stilts in the midst of the ocean. Lose yourself in a glass rainforest. Glide over the mysterious waters of the Everglades. Visit your own desert island. Drink the sweet nectar of the Cuban coffee gods. Venture into the “other” Miami, beyond the glitz and glamor, steeped in natural beauty and deep-seeded tradition. See why Ernest Hemingway called the Keys his home. Though teeming with tourists, there are still plenty of hidden gems to be unearthed, you just have to know where to look…

More than any other civilization, China is renowned for its long tradition of ceramic production, from its terracotta and stoneware works in ancient times to the imperial porcelain manufactured at Jingdezhen from the end of the fourteenth century. These works have been admired and collected over centuries for their outstanding quality and refinement. Now two hundred masterpieces from prominent private collections around the world have been brought together for the first time in a new book. The Baur Collections in Geneva, formed between 1928 and 1951, and the Zhuyuetang Collection (the Bamboo and Moon Pavilion in Hong Kong), which has been building since the late 1980s, reveal the elegance and variety of imperial monochrome porcelain wares produced during the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties, which followed on from the Tang (618-907) and Song (960-1279) periods. These restrained pieces – both profane and sacred – exemplify the values of simplicity and modesty espoused by classical Chinese texts. With chapters devoted to the historical, cultural and technical contexts in which these pieces were made, this book will be a key reference on Chinese monochrome ceramics for all lovers of the subject, as well as students, researchers and connoisseurs.

Text in English and French with Chinese summaries.

At the turn of the twentieth century, in particular Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, and later the Surrealists, then others right up till the present day, Western artists have drawn on the arts of Africa for inspiration. How can this constant impact ever be measured? The same is true for the arts in Africa. Every sculpture carries within it the heritage of a people, culture, and artistic tradition in the originality of its forms. West Africa, Central Africa, and East Africa each has its own set of characteristics, within which the variety of the sculptures – always similar yet also always different – demonstrates the creativity of the ethnic group that created it. This book presents a remarkable collection amassed by a knowledgeable and impassioned art lover that combines sensitivity with quality – a quality of forms meticulously selected among different African cultures. It includes masks and reliquaries carved in Gabon, effigies and statuettes from Congo-Brazzaville and Congo-Kinshasa, and astonishing objects from West Africa, from Mali to Cameroon, the Koro and Mossi peoples, the Ejagham and Ekoi in Nigeria, and the Gouro in the Ivory Coast. An extraordinary collection of artistic forms that well merits its place in the universal patrimony of art.

Contents: Introduction; Le Gabon; Le royaume Kongo; Les Teke | Les Bembe | Les Zombo; Les Songye; Les Luba | Les Hemba | Les Bembe/Boyo; Les Chowke | Les Pende | Les Zande/Mangbetu; L’Afrique de l’Ouest: Les Guro | Les Senufo | Les Mossi | Les Koro | Les Fon | Les Bamileke | Les Oku | Les Mendakwe; Conclusion; English text.

Text in English and French