Recent Publications
East Asian Lacquer: Material Culture, Science and Conservation
Shayne Rivers, Rupert Faulkner, Boris Pretzel (eds)
A key consequence of the western discovery of sixteenth-century Japan was the emergence of workshops producing lacquerware for the European market. As with East Asian porcelain, Japanese lacquer quickly became an absolute must-have, its gold-on-black pictorial schemes enriching the sumptuous interiors of the aristocratic and wealthy. The Mazarin Chest, which was made in Kyoto in the late 1630s to early 1640s and has belonged to the Victoria and Albert Museum since 1882, is the largest and most s... more...
British Museum Technical Research Bulletin, Volume 5, The
David Saunders (ed.)
This bulletin, part of an annual series which Archetype Publications publishes in association with the British Museum, offers a new forum to show a dynamic behind-the-scenes glimpse of the current work of curators, conservators and scientists conducted on a range of artefacts and materials across the collections at the British Museum.... more...
English Panel Paintings 1400–1558: A Survey of Figure Paintings on East Anglian Rood Screens
Audrey M. Baker PhD, FSA
The art of East Anglia was pre-eminent during the late thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century. Wooden screens with painted panels were one of the most essential fittings of late pre-Reformation churches, serving both to protect the high altar and to define the division between the chancel and the nave and aisles. Whereas very few screens dating from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries survive, the extant fifteenth-century rood-screen paintings in East Anglia form the largest... more...
Mediaeval Painters' Materials and Techniques: The Montpellier Liber diversarum arcium
Mark Clarke
The anonymous Montpellier Liber diversarum arcium (‘Book of Various Arts’) contains the most complete set of instructions in the craft of medieval painting to have survived to the present day. Its comprehensive summary of the state of the art of painting in the workshops of the fourteenth century will be of great interest to art historians, conservators and historians of artists’ technology. This long-overlooked manuscript provides a complete practical painting course: drawing, w... more...
Pigments and Power in the Andes: from the Material to the Symbolic in Andean Cultural Practices 1500 - 1800
Gabriela Siracusano
This book is the result of a study of cultural practices related to the uses of colouring materials in the South American Andean region during the colonial period (sixteenth–eighteenth 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. A material history of color in Andean workshops (the 'making'), leads the reader to the exchange of ideas between different parties suc... more...
Leather Tanneries: the Archaeological Evidence
Roy Thomson, Quita Mould (eds)
The papers in this volume go some way to correct some of the misinterpretations presently found in archaeological reports. Contributions cover many aspects of research into the evidence from prehistoric, Roman, medieval and early modern periods as well as descriptions of traditional techniques still used in different parts of the world today. Whilst the emphasis is on the interpretation of the evidence for leather tanning surviving in the archaeological record, other aspects such as standing ta... more...
Studying Old Master Paintings: Technology and Practice
Marika Spring (ed.)
The papers in this volume constitute a substantial body of work that provides a wide-ranging overview of current research on the technology and practice of Old Master paintings, covering some 700 years of European painting, from the thirteenth century to the early twentieth century, including works by Guido da Siena, Bellini, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Fernando Gallego, Holbein, Caravaggio, El Greco, Rubens, Murillo, Gainsborough, Reynolds, Whistler, van Gogh and Munch. Six of the contribu... more...
Conservation, Restoration, and Repair of Stringed Instruments and Their Bows, The
Tom Wilder (ed.)
This three volume title, published by IPCI-Canada in association with Archetype Publications, has 150 articles, 1600 pages and over 1300 illustrations and will be an invaluable resource for both conservators and craftspeople. The outcome of a rigorous selection process by an editorial board of prominent experts, it emphasizes conservation-minded techniques, presents alternative approaches to a wide range of repair issues and is groundbreaking in the extensive attention that it gives to the bo... more...
Decorated Surfaces on Ancient Egyptian Objects: Technology, Deterioration and Conservation
J. Dawson, Christina Rozeik, M.M. Wright (eds)
From monumental tomb paintings to delicate ivories, ancient Egyptian objects are some of the most complex and fragile encountered by archaeologists, curators and conservators. Those who examine, analyse and treat them face a number of practical and ethical challenges. This volume of papers, by an international group of experts, focuses on decorated surfaces including polychrome wood, coloured basketry, patinated metal and painted textile. Aspects of technology, investigation and treatment are... more...
Trade in Artists' Materials: Markets and Commerce in Europe to 1700
Jo Kirby, Susie Nash, Joanna Cannon (eds)
Where did artists buy their materials? Who prepared them? What did they cost? Where did they come from, and how? This volume draws together the international research in this new and rapidly developing field of interdisciplinary enquiry by historians, conservators, scientists, economic historians and historians of trade. The evidence concerning supply and distribution, availability, cost, quality and value of artists' materials is fundamental for interpreting surviving objects in a wider sense. ... more...
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