Acknowledged as one of the most important sets of early English tapestries, the Four Seasons set at Hatfield House, Hertfordshire, raise many scholarly questions surrounding the design, production and uses of woven tapestry in sixteenth and early-seventeenth century England. Although their main subjects have long been known to copy a set of prints by Maarten de Vos, the 170 emblems with Latin inscriptions that fill their borders have never been fully described, or even listed, in the existing literature and it is only Professor Bath’s identification of sources for more than 100 of these in Renaissance emblem books which now allows us not only to understand exactly what these emblems represent and what they mean, but also to draw some conclusions about the design process of early tapestries and the deeply embedded status of emblems in early-modern British culture.

There is no need to delve deeply into English history to appreciate the importance of the horse and its saddle. Saddles carried Roman, Saxon and Norman invaders across Britain, sustained the peripatetic English monarch and court, and advanced Tudor trade and Stuart civil war. From the 18th century the English saddle developed rapidly into the world’s leading design and remains pre-eminent today. It is not difficult to find recent books describing the classic English saddle of the 19th and 20th centuries, but none deal with earlier saddles. The authors of the present volume, which is based upon a conference held in 2002 at Saddlers’ Hall in London, explored rare books and manuscripts, private and fine art collections, archaeological fragments, museum stores and family records to piece together this account of the historic antecedents of the English astride saddle and the parallel development of the side-saddle. Few people in history owned saddles as these were cumbersome and expensive objects. Although horse ownership increased after the Middle Ages, saddle survival depended upon a coincidence of care, neglect and good fortune. The conservation of several of these rare survivals has made it possible for their hand manufacture and original decoration to be described and illustrated for the first time. This book describes how collaboration between archaeologists, restorers and experimental riders enabled a Roman saddle to be recreated and ridden. This delightful and beautifully illustrated volume should fascinate riders, archaeologists, conservators, historians and curators alike.

This volume seeks a solution to the problem of methods of preservation for the rapidly developing and complex field of contemporary and modern visual art. Despite adopting the new concept of heritage, the aims and methods of conservation have remained the same, evolving very slowly by following some changes in the history of ideas, human experience and techniques of conservation. The authors of Innovative Approaches to the Complex Care of Modern and Contemporary Art relate complex conservation practices to an awareness of the need for a multidimensional approach to the care of modern and contemporary art. Maintaining a dialogue with history, they boldly confront the typical patterns and accepted evolution of the theory of conservation by looking at the wider perspective including the most recent history of any work of art – documentation, interviews with artists, records of image, the sound of performance, consent to e-installation, emulation etc. – and bearing in mind as the first principle primum non nocere and various legal issues.

This important book presents the results of a comprehensive technical study of the painters in Cologne between 1400 and 1450. It represents a major step forward in understanding the materials and techniques of panel painting in the 15th century achieved through dendrochronological evidence and examination of the ground and intermediate layers, pigments etc. In addition to discussions on the results of the analyses, there is a catalogue of 29 fifteenth century panels together with the results of their examinations.

A useful guide to the processing of coins from excavations, which will be valuable reading for conservators and archaeologists, and museum curators.

The origins of metalpoint (silverpoint, goldpoint, etc.) drawing are widely thought to lie in classical antiquity. The Luminous Trace investigates the artefactual and literary evidence for the use of metalpoint through the ages from earliest times up to its revival, particularly in the United States, in the later 20th and early 21st centuries, reviewing the history and historiography of metalpoint and its use for drawing and writing. Metalpoint drawings are the central objects of this study and their physical features are the prime consideration, juxtaposed with the written evidence which may suggest why artefacts look as they do.

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.

Along the great Silk Road, numerous objects of cultural heritage survive as witnesses to the mingling of indigenous cultures with ‘foreign’ cultures. One type of surviving witness is mural painting and the papers in this volume are witnesses themselves of a colloquium on the subject of Mural paintings of the Silk Road attended by art historians, historians and archaeologists, scientists and conservators from East and West, held in Tokyo in 2006. A newfound recognition of the vastness of the Silk Road, along with a genuine rediscovery of the ancient cultural exchanges that took place there is reflected in this collection of papers which examines the range of information (art styles, techniques and materials) encapsulated within mural paintings, allowing the reader a glimpse of the dynamism inherent in the cultural exchanges between East and West. Today, parts of the Silk Road, rich in the magnificence of the ancient arts they possess, are often located in countries facing major challenges. Countless important archaeological sites are in danger of demolition or severe damage by human encroachment or turmoil. This symposium also addressed such issues – more from an Asian point of view, reaching beyond European perspectives. This volume is published in association with the Japan Center for International Co-operation in Conservation, National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, and contains the proceedings of the 29th Annual International Symposium on the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Property, National Research Institute for Cultural Properties, Tokyo, January 2006.

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.

This book is a collection of scientific papers written over 30 years by Karin Groen on aspects of the painting of Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Leyster, Vermeer, Van Gogh etc. The author tracks the historical development of the application of scientific techniques in research into artists techniques and materials and examines phenomena such as the changing of green pigments to blue, the use of red in preparatory layers, binding media, blanching and organic pigments.

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 people who care for, handle and work with collections of cultural artifacts and works of art understand the sensitive nature of the materials and are in a unique position to observe changes in their condition. This publication is intended to aid them in the identification of environmental damage to cultural artifacts and of potential sources of that deterioration, resulting in the prevention of damage to these irreplaceable objects.

The papers presented here are the result of 50 years research in this field at the Freer. The subjects of study include Chinese bronze and iron, Himalayan, and Cambodian sculpture; Japanese paintings; jewelry from East Asia to Europe, and much more.

Investigations into a variety of materials and techniques used in creating pictorial art from various parts of Asia are presented in this volume: painted reliefs in a Cambodian temple; wall paintings in India; panel paintings in the Philippines; the figures of gods and guardians in a Japanese temple; paintings on silk and several papers covering aspects of the materials, pigments, painting and printing techniques used in works of art on paper. This preponderance of investigations relating to paper seems appropriate given the invention and extensive use of paper in Asia, and East Asia in particular.

Throughout Asia’s history, sculptural arts have encompassed a variety of processes, including carving, modeling, casting, and assembling. Scientific investigations presented in this book include studies of Southeast Asian jade, Chinese bronzes, Mongolian deer stones, Japanese polychrome sculpture, and others. Scientific study of sculpture helps us learn more about why, where, and how these works were made as well as address concerns about the state of their preservation and conservation. This is the third in an ongoing series on the results of the annual Forbes Symposium sponsored by the Freer Gallery of Art on research in the field of Asian art.

The first title, Scientific Research in the Field of Asian Art, edited by Paul Jett with Janet G. Douglas, Blythe McCarthy, and John Winter, was published in 2003 (ISBN 9781873132388, $95.00); the second, Scientific Research on the Pictorial Arts of Asia, edited by Paul Jett, John Winter, and Blythe McCarthy, was published in 2005 (9781873132746, $95.00). All three volumes are published by Archetype Books in association with the Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

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 reveals an interesting and detailed account of the materials and methods used, the interaction between restorer, curator and collector and different philosophical approaches towards restoration and the care of paintings.

This publication contains papers from the CATS conference – Technology & Practice: Studying the European Visual Arts 1800-1850. The conference focused on artists’ techniques and materials, written sources, conservation science, the history of science and technology, history of trade, and innovation of artists’ materials during the first half of the 19th century. In the preceding several decades a succession of art academies emerged throughout Europe, and another focal point of the conference was the impact of these institutions on a new generation of artists, examining how this manifested itself in their paintings, sculpture, interiors and art on paper.

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.