British Museum Handling Session: Micro-architecture

In February 2015 Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman kindly permitted Courtauld staff and students to examine micro-architectural objects in the British Museum.

We saw two wonderful ivories with fairly generic Gothic baldachins, along with this extraordinary 10c (?) ivory cylinder with Passion narratives. This 12c censer cover is an especially wonderful example of dozens of similar objects, and later metalwork objects included this 15c Swiss shrine and this early 14c casket with French and English heraldry. Then there was a whole group of seals, including this from Langdon Priory, this remarkable 1322 seal impression from Cottingham Abbey, and this 13c double-sided seal matrix from Scotland. Finally we looked at this very curious lead object showing the Annunciation in an  elaborate architectural setting:

badge

Amongst others, we asked the following questions in relation to these objects:

1) does the object relate to ‘real’ buildings (if so, are these necessarily contemporary, and has this assumption been used to date the object?)
2) Does the architecture carry any specific symbolic/iconographic/representational meaning?
3) Is there evidence for setting out of the architecture (compass points, lines etc), which might reveal the setting out process (and, potentially, the role of drawing)
4) Is scale especially relevant to the object?
5) Might the object feasibly transmit architectural designs (and was it produced in quantity?)?
6) Does the object shed light on relations between masons/metalworkers etc?

In preparation for the session we held a Reading Group focused on the following texts:

  • Achim Timmerman, ‘Multum in parvo: Microarchitecture in the Medieval West, c. 800-1550’, In: Richard Etlin, ed, The Cambridge History of Religious Architecture of the World (forthcoming)
  • Paul Binski, Gothic Wonder. Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style, 1290-1350 (Yale UP, 2014), 121-60.
  • Sarah M. Guérin, ‘Meaningful Spectacles: Gothic Ivories Staging the Divine’, The Art Bulletin, 95: 1, 53-77.
  • François Bucher, ‘Micro-Architecture As the ‘Idea’ of Gothic Theory and Style’, Gesta, 15: 1-2, 71-89.

British Museum Handling Session: Agnus Dei

In November 2015 Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman of the British Museum treated Courtauld staff and students to another handling session, this time of a diverse range of objects with the iconography of the Agnus Dei. The session was kindly led by Irene Galandra Cooper, who is studying the Agnus Dei as part of her PhD, which forms part of the Domestic Devotions project at Cambridge: Domestic Devotions: The Place of Piety in the Italian Renaissance Home, 1400-1600.

Agnus Dei 1

Throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern period the Agnus Dei iconography was closely associated with the wax discs made from the remains of the Paschal candles at St Peter’s, stamped with the Lamb of God, and distributed by the Papacy as gifts. This 16c print gives a sense of the near-industrial scale of this operation, while a number of Agnus Dei medallions and pendants testify to the apotropaic associations these objects soon acquired. We also looked at this niello plate medallion inscribed with the YHS, a late medieval pilgrim badge, an Agnus Dei seal impression, a reliquary case and 14c signet ring. As ever, it was the moulds that provoked particular discussion:

Agnus Dei 2

The lower of these two, apparently cast in bronze, appears to have a number of low relief moulds in which soft lead could be pressed, presumably to make brooches and badges to be pinned to clothes and hats. This record of the kinds of ephemeral objects that rarely survive raised lots of questions: who would use a mould like this, and what market does it attest to? Did these badges signal political and social affiliations, religious beliefs, or something more superficial? The wonderful fragment of a Wheel of Fortune was thought particularly intriguing.

In preparation for this session we read the following texts:

Lightbown, Chapter 22, ‘Pendants: II’, Medieval European Jewellery, Victoria & Albert Museum, 1992

Cherry, ‘Containers for Agnus Dei’, Through a Glass Brightly: Studies in Byzantine and Medieval Art and Archaeology Presented to David Buckton, ed. C. Entwistle, Oxford, 2003, 171-84

S. Bertelli, Chapter 1, The King’s body : the sacred rituals of power in medieval and early modern Europe; translated by R. Burr Litchfield, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001.

 

Workshop Reflections: British Museum Handling Session: Becket and Pilgrimage

In January 2016 Courtauld staff and students enjoyed another chance to see some of the BM’s hidden treasures thanks to the kind help of Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman of the BM. This time the theme was the cult of Thomas Becket and other objects associated with pilgrimage

Becket 2 (1)

The BM has dozens of Becket pilgrims’ badges, produced in astonishing variety and throughout the Middle Ages. Most of these examples were dredged up from the river Thames:

13c badge showing Becket’s shrine

14c badge with a bell, inscribed with Thomas’ name

Best of all, the collection includes a number of moulds that are closely linked to badges, such as this one:

Late medieval badge showing Thomas on horseback

Mould for a badge

Or this one:

Becket gloves

Mould for gloves badge

Becket 2 (2)

We also looked at representations of Becket’s murder, from this early 13c Limoges reliquary chasse to this late medieval alabaster, as well as this 15c seal matrix showing Thomas in a in ship and this magnificent 13c seal from Langdon Priory. To finish off the session we also looked at a couple of late medieval prints promoting the shrine of the Beautiful Virgin at Regensburg: one showing the original church, the other the church planned (but never built) for the site.

This was partly an exploratory session for a series of workshops and conferences planned by Lloyd de Beer (UEA/British Museum), Tom Nickson (Courtauld Institute of Art) and Emily Guerry (University of Kent) in the lead up to the anniversary of Becket’s death and translation in 2020.

In preparation for the handling session we read the following texts for a reading group the night before:

Sarah Blick, ‘Votives, Images, Interaction and Pilgrimage to the Tomb and Shrine of St. Thomas Becket, Canterbury Cathedral’, In: Sarah Blick and Laura Deborah Gelfand, eds, Push me, pull you. Imaginative, emotional, physical, and spatial interaction in late medieval and Renaissance art, Leiden, 2011, 21-58
Martina Bagnoli, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann and James Robinson, eds, Treasures of heaven: saints, relics, and devotion in medieval Europe, Cleveland, Ohio, 2010, pp. 148-61 and catalogue nos 97-102
William D. Wixom, ‘In quinto scrinio de Cupro. A Copper Reliquary Chest Attributed to Canterbury: Style, Iconography, and Patronage’, In: Elizabeth C. Parker and Mary B. Shepard, eds, The Cloisters: studies in honor of the fiftieth anniversary, New York, 1992, 195-228
Jennifer Lee, ‘Searching for Signs: Pilgrims’ Identity and Experience made visible in the Miracula Sancti Thomae Cantuariensis’, In: Sarah Blick and Laura Deborah Gelfand, eds, Push me, pull you. Imaginative, emotional, physical, and spatial interaction in late medieval and Renaissance art, Leiden, 2011, 473-491.

The Constitutions of Clarendon blog also has a useful collection of images of Becket chasse reliquaries and manuscripts

Lecture: The Arts & Science in Early Islamic Spain (15 June, Courtauld Institute of Art)

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Wednesday 15 June 2016 – 3:30 pm – 5:00 pm

Research Forum Seminar Room, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 0RN

There is a symbiotic relationship between design, art and visual culture, and the exact sciences, which is attested in early scientific objects from al-Andalus and in medieval Arabic texts. In this talk I explore the objects, spaces, and figures that illuminate this relationship, focusing on ‘Abbas Ibn Firnas (d. ca. 887), the celebrated polymath of the Cordoban Umayyad court, and on al-Andalus and its contemporaries between the 9th-11th centuries.

Glaire D. Anderson is a historian of Islamic art of the caliphal period, with a focus on the art and court culture of Umayyad Cordoba. She is the author of The Villa in Early Islamic Iberia (Ashgate, 2013), co-editor with Mariam Rosser-Owen of Revisiting al-Andalus (Brill, 2007), and recent articles on the Islamic west in architectural history, women and the arts of Cordoba, and material culture and caliphal sovereignty.

http://courtauld.ac.uk/event/the-arts-science-in-early-islamic-spain

Summer School: intensive introduction to Latin language and literature of the late antique and medieval periods, Notre Dame University, June 13-July 22

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Summer School: intensive introduction to Latin language and literature of the late antique and medieval periods, Notre Dame University, June 13-July 22, 2016
Apply now! 
This summer, the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame is offering an intensive introduction to Latin language and literature of the late antique and medieval periods (please see the attached poster). In this course, students will
  • learn about developments in medieval Latin (morphology, syntax, vocabulary, orthography and pronunciation)
  • practice close reading and accurate translation of a broad and representative selection of medieval Latin texts, including Latin influenced by another language; administrative Latin; technical texts; scholastic Latin; Latin of various professions; narrative accounts; imitations of classical style; formal styles; rhymed prose; cursus; ornamented styles; rhymed and metric poetry
  • review and practice the principal constructions of classical Latin
  • overcome your anxiety about sight reading
  • be introduced to the history, areas, and tools of medieval Latin philology through active exercises
  • work very hard, and have lots of fun!
The course runs from June 13-July 22. Online registration is open now. Visit summersession.nd.edu for additional information and to register. Graduate students who take Medieval Latin are eligible to compete for the Medieval Academy’s CARA (Centers and Regional Associations) scholarships, which provide full tuition for either course taken for credit. Visit medievalacademy.org for application details.
Should you have additional questions about the course, please contact the instructor, Dr. Andrew Irving, at airving1@nd.edu. Inquiries about registration and summer courses at Notre Dame should be directed to the Summer Session Registrar.

British Museum Handling Session: Master W and Key and late-gothic architectural prints 

an00059980_001_lThanks to the assistance of Lloyd De Beer and Naomi Speakman, both in progress with individual collaborative PhDs at the British Museum, the Courtauld has organised several handling sessions for postgraduate students over the past few years – you can read a report from an earlier session here.
The March session was kindly hosted by the British Museum’s Prints and Drawings department, and focused on Master W and Key (active c. 1465–1490), an anonymous Netherlandish engraver named after the shape of his monogram. Most of the eighty-two extant works by this artist are ornament prints, but he is also known for his engravings of ships, the first known representations of this kind.
Both aspects of the Master’s production were discussed during the handling session, when we had the opportunity to analyze several prints by the artist, including:
While the ships may be connected with the ducal fleet of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, scholars have generally interpreted the architectural prints as patterns to be used by craftsmen in the workshop. Nevertheless, discussion during the session raised many questions on the cost, circulation and market of such early prints. Although a modern perspective may see the printed image as a cheap, mass-produced medium, these early architectural  examples are very complex, and often required the painstaking engraving of more than one plate, printed on multiple sheets. Would such time-consuming creations really have offered a more convenient alternative to the exchange of drawings among workshops? What other reasons may have contributed to the spread of such designs?
Although this remained an open question, consideration of prints such as Alart du Hameel’s Design for a Gothic baldachin  revealed that early architectural prints could be intentionally used to advertise their maker’s expertise in design and geometry: this print features a prominent signature, a mason’s mark, and an abbreviated ground-plan which seems to imply superior technical expertise. The same consummate skill is show in Wenzel von Olmütz’s Elevation of a Gothic Pinnacle with a Hexagonal Ground Plan, although in contrast to du Hameel, Olmütz did not sign his creation, and positioned plan and elevation one above the other, as typical of other Gothic drawings and of the Gothic design process in general.
Other treats of the handling session included Emperor Heraclius entering Jerusalem with the upright True Cross, designed by Alart du Hameel but signed ‘Bosche,’ presumably in an attempt to partake of the painter’s fame; Master ES’ figured alphabet; Albrecht Dürer’s large coloured drawing of a Gothic table fountain.
Objects for the session were selected by Dr Ursula Weekes, Dr Tom Nickson and Costanza Beltrami. We also put together a short list of suggested reading on the theme of late-Gothic architectural prints and alphabets:
Kik, Oliver, ‘From Lodge to Studio: Transmissions of Architectural Knowledge in the Southern Low Countries, 1480–1530.’ In The Notion of the Painter-Architect in Italy and the Southern Low Countries, edited by Piet Lombaerde (Turnhout, 2014)
Waters, Michael, ‘A Renaissance without Order: Ornament, Single-sheet Engravings and the Mutability of Architectural Prints,’ Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 71, no. 4 (December 2002), pp. 488-523
Kavaler, Matt, ‘Gossart as Architect,’ and the entries on The Virgin and Child with Musical Angels (p. 126) and The Malvagna Diptych (p. 136) in Maryan W. Ainsworth (ed.), Man, Myth and Sensual Pleasures: Jean Gossart’s Renaissance: The Complete Works (New Haven and London, 2010)
Boekeler, Erika, ‘Building Meaning: The First Architectural Alphabet’. In Push Me, Pull You: Art and Devotional Interaction in Late Medieval & Early Modern Europe, eds S. Blick & L. Gelfand; E.J. (Brill, 2011), pp. 149-195.

Call for Contributions: Edited Volume ‘After the Carolingians: Manuscript Illumination in the Tenth–Eleventh Centuries’

salzburgpericopes001Call for Contributions: edited volume After the Carolingians: Manuscript Illumination in the Tenth–Eleventh Centuries
Deadline: Jun 1, 2016

A great deal of research remains to be done on the substantial and
wide-ranging corpus of illuminated manuscripts produced in continental
Europe between the late ninth and late eleventh centuries. Whether
tucked away in footnotes or relegated to the status of comparanda, the
extant manuscripts from this difficult period of history — particularly
from the regions of modern-day France and Flanders — rarely receive the
focused attention they deserve. Yet many manuscripts from the tenth and
eleventh centuries have the potential to challenge our understanding of
fundamental issues of historical inquiry, including the nature of
artistic originality, various processes of transmission, the working
relationships between artists, patrons and scribes; even the essential
character and functions of illumination.

We seek papers that offer new perspectives on the culture of
illuminated books produced between c. 900 and c. 1050 outside the
established centers of art-historical focus in Anglo-Saxon England and
the Ottonian Empire. Studies of manuscripts originating beyond the
traditional geographic boundaries of the Carolingian Empire are most
welcome, as are studies that coordinate manuscripts with their physical
environment or with works of art in other media, and studies that
reflect upon relationships of “center and periphery” or questions of
regionalism, problematize the issue of artistic quality, or investigate
connections between tenth–eleventh century manuscripts and illumination
of other periods.

Papers will be collected in a volume to be published in the series
“Sense, Matter and Medium: New Approaches to Medieval Culture” (De
Gruyter). We wish also to propose a session on the topic of the volume
at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America (Toronto,
April 6–8, 2017), which will double as a contributors’ meeting.

Submission: Please send an abstract of your proposed contribution (ca. 300 words) and let
us know whether you would be able to attend the MAA conference.
Deadline: June 1, 2016. Please contact us with any questions.

Beatrice Kitzinger (Princeton University, bkitzinger@princeton.edu)
Joshua O’Driscoll (The Morgan Library and Museum,
jodriscoll@themorgan.org)

CFP: The Rood in Medieval Britain and Ireland c.900–c.1500 (University of York, 2–3 September 2016), deadline 18 April 2016

The rood – understood as the cross itself, and/or the image of Christ crucified – was central to the visual and devotional culture of medieval Christianity. By the late middle ages, a rood was present in monumental form, either painted or sculpted, at the east end of the nave of every church. Yet roods in numerous other forms could be found in ecclesiastical contexts: as images, in various sizes and media – in manuscript illumination, on textiles, and in stained glass. Images of the rood were also to be found within domestic, civic, and military contexts, from the bedroom to the battlefield.

Following recent scholarship that has focused on early medieval roods (Sancta Crux/Halig Rod series, 2004-2010), and considered monumental roods on the Continent (Jacqueline Jung’s The Gothic Screen, 2013), this conference will bring together established academics, early career and emerging scholars, to share new research and foster debate on the forms and functions of images of the rood in Britain and Ireland c.900-c.1500. To this end, we invite proposals (max. 300 words) for papers of no longer than 30 minutes’ duration from scholars working within the disciplines of medieval Art History, Literature, History, Archaeology and Theology.

In considering the monumental church rood together with its counterparts in other media and contexts, this conference aims to reassess the complexities of the central image within the medieval Christian imagination.

Potential areas for discussion can include, but are not limited to, the rood in relation to materiality; sacred space; the liturgy; emotion/affect; conquest and crusade; the relationship between text and image; patronage, and pageantry/secular display.

Proposals should be emailed to pmt500@york.ac.uk no later than 18 April 2016.

Organisers: Dr Philippa Turner and Dr Jane Hawkes, Department of History of Art, University of York

Book Roundup: Late Medieval Painting

Here are some great new books on 14th and 15th century painting.

Any suggestions from the other end of the Middle Ages (or anything in-between)? As always do let us know of any recently-published medieval art history books you would like us to include in a book roundup – we would be happy to let people to know about them!

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Zuleika Murat, Guariento. Pittore di corte, maestro del naturale (Silvana Editoriale)

Guariento di Arpo (1310 c.- 1367-1370) was the leading painter of Padua under the Carrara. He worked extensively for the most prestigious patrons of his time, including members of

the Carrara family, two Doges of Venice, the Augustinian friars and the Dominicans, being commissioned both of frescoes and of panel paintings. Despite the great value he was granted during his life-time, and the attention that scholars have paid to his works more recently, the real nature of his production still struggles to emerge. This is due, in part, to the partial destruction of his most important paintings, such as imposing frescoes and huge altarpieces; but also to the nature of his style — in-between Italian naturalism and Gothic elegance — that has sometimes disorientated scholars.

This book aims to reconsider Guariento’s activity and place in the wider context of Trecento Padua. Through a new examination of his paintings, a new interpretation of the requirements of the patrons, as well as of the wider historical background, this book provides a new perspective on Guariento and of the entire context where he lived and worked. Special attention is paid to matters neglected thus far, such as the relationship

between the painter and the scientists who worked on astrology, optics and perspectiva at the University of Padua, the Studium, who might have suggested him how to represent a believable fictive space in painting; the decoration of the golden leaf and of the pastiglia; the typologies and functions of panel paintings. His works are also interpreted as factors of visual propaganda, and their complex iconography is here connected to the specific needs of the patrons. The paintings are presented through a rich photographic documentation and -when totally or partially destroyed- with virtual reconstruction done on a solid philological base.

9780300220131Matthijs Ilsink and Jos Koldeweij, Hieronymus Bosch: Visions of Genius (Yale University Press)
Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1450-1516) lived and worked in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, where he created enigmatic paintings and drawings full of bizarre creatures, phantasmagoric monsters, and terrifying nightmares. He also depicted detailed landscapes and found inspiration in fundamental moral concepts: seduction, sin, and judgment. This beautiful book accompanies a major exhibition on Bosch’s work in his native city, and will feature important new research on his 25 known paintings and 20 drawings. The book, divided into six sections, covers the entirety of the artist’s career. It discusses in detail Bosch’s Pilgrimage of Life, Bosch and the Life of Christ, his role as a draughtsman, his depictions of saints, and his visualization of Judgment Day and the hereafter, among other topics, and is handsomely illustrated by new photography undertaken by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project Team.
97803002201551Luuk Hoogstede, Ron Spronk, Matthijs Ilsink, Jos Koldeweij, Robert G. Erdmann, Rik Klein Gotink, Hanneke Nap, Daan Veldhuizen, Hieronymus Bosch, Painter and Draughtsman Technical Studies (Yale University Press)
Scholars have traditionally focused on the subjects and meanings of Hieronymus Bosch’s works, whereas issues of painting technique, workshop participation, and condition of extant pictures have received considerably less attention. Since 2010, the Bosch Research and Conservation Project has been studying these works using modern methods. The team has documented Bosch’s extant paintings with infrared reflectography and ultra high-resolution digital macro photography, both in infrared and visible light. Together with microscopic study of the paintings, this has enabled the team to write extensive and critical research reports describing the techniques and condition of the works, published in this extraordinary volume for the first time.

dis-9781909400092-1Susan Urbach, Early Netherlandish Painting in Budapest: Volume I and II (Brepols Publishers)

This is the first volume of a series of scholarly catalogues on Flemish paintings from the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest. Written by Dr Susan Urbach – emeritus curator of the museum and renowned scholar of Northern Renaissance Art – with the assistance of curator Ágota Varga and picture-conservator András Fáy, the catalogue includes extensive entries and bibliographical references on 49 works dating from c. 1460 to c. 1540. The volume covers about a third of the entire collection of Flemish Painting from the 15th century through to the 17th and includes the latest results of scholarly research and technical analysis.

rpouswnqC. C. Wilson, Examining Giovanni Bellini: An Art ‘More Human and More Divine’ (Brepols Publishers)

This book presents a collection of fifteen essays on the Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini, one of the most innovative and influential artists of the Italian Renaissance. Long renowned for his embrace of oil technique, astute mastery of perspective, and development of landscape painting, Bellini has been admired across the ages as well for the profoundly human and deeply reverent character of his works. Aspects of Bellini’s world, his oeuvre, and his legacy are examined here through a diversity of approaches, many interdisciplinary and supported by the bibliographies of theoretical writings and of specialized fields rarely or not previously brought to bear on the pictures discussed. Topics represented include the study of medicine and healing plants, plant and animal symbolism, portraiture, liturgy, antique sources, material culture and market practices, textual analysis, and collecting and reception.

 

 

 

Call for Papers: Illuminating Metalwork: Representations of Precious-Metal Objects in Medieval Manuscript Illumination (Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies)

sherborne_lgCall for papers: Illuminating Metalwork: Representations of Precious-Metal Objects in
Medieval Manuscript Illumination (Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies), Vatican Film Library,  Saint Louis University, St. Louis MO, October 14 – 15, 2016
Deadline: May 1, 2016

The Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies is the longest
running annual conference in North America devoted exclusively to
medieval and Renaissance manuscript studies. Organized by the Vatican
Film Library in conjunction with its journal, Manuscripta, the two-day
program each year offers a variety of sessions addressing the
production, distribution, reception, and transmission of pre-modern
manuscripts, including such topics as paleography, codicology,
illumination, textual transmission, library history, provenance,
cataloguing, and others.
Manuscript illuminations frequently place special emphasis on
precious-metal objects both sacred and secular, such as chalices,
reliquaries, crosses, tableware, and figural sculptures. Artists
typically rendered these objects using gold, silver, and metal alloys,
“medium-specific” materials that contrasted dynamically with the
surrounding color pigments. The visual characteristics of these
depicted metal objects — lustrous yet flat, almost
anti-representational — could dazzle, but perhaps also disorient, the
viewer: they catch the eye while creating a fertile tension between the
representation of an image and the presentation of a precious stuff,
between the pictorial and the material. A gold-leaf chalice signals its
real-world referent both iconically, via its shape, and indexically,
via its metal material, a doubled representation unavailable to the
remainder of the painted miniature. Such images can take on added
complexity if intended to represent known real-world objects.

This panel seeks to take inventory of how these precious-metal objects
were depicted and how they generated meaning. Possible themes include:
chronological/geographical specificities in the representation of
metalwork in manuscript illuminations; depictions of precious-metal
figural sculpture, including idols; technique (e.g. pigment vs. leaf);
the semiotics of metal on parchment; and whether we can speak of
“portraits” of particular objects and/or visual “inventories” of
particular collections. We welcome proposals that consider Western,
Byzantine, and/or Islamic manuscript illumination from the early
through the late Middle Ages.

2016 Guest Speaker: Madeline H. Caviness (Mary Richardson Professor
Emeritus, Tufts University), “Medieval German Law and the Jews: The
Sachsenspiegel Picture-Books”

Submission: Please send (1) an abstract of no more than one page, and (2) a c.v.
with current contact information by Sunday, May 1, 2016 to both panel
organizers: Joseph Salvatore Ackley (ja2998@columbia.edu) and Shannon
L. Wearing (slwearing@gmail.com). Selected papers are to be twenty
minutes in length.

Please note that conference registration fees, and travel and
accommodation expenses, are the responsibility of the panelists and/or
their institutions.
For more information, click here.