Wishing a warm welcome back to all of our Materia readers! For issue 4, we have another special themed issue for you, this time focusing on the topic of interdisciplinary collaboration.
In selecting our theme for this issue, our editors wished to highlight the different contributions offered by individual scholars and research disciplines. For example, within the fields of conservation and conservation science, researchers are able to contribute detailed empirical data relating to artworks’ material compositions, often down to the microscopic level, revealing aspects such as artists’ individual pigment choices. In addition, imaging techniques such as multispectral photography can provide valuable information relating to an art object’s layer structure, including aspects such as compositional changes made by the artist, as well as later restoration interventions. Contrastingly, art history has more traditionally dealt with broader contextual questions, with attention given to diverse topics ranging from philosophical aesthetics and questions of style, socio-political or religious affiliations, to contemporary practices of trade and commerce. That is not to say that the boundaries between the different fields are necessarily fixed. Indeed, conservators and conservation scientists have shown a sustained interest in contextual or historical questions, and vice versa for art historians when it comes to the subject of an artwork’s materiality.
As editors at Materia, we also recognise that the task of finding balance within interdisciplinary research is sometimes tricky, and the dance of teamwork is sometimes fraught with missteps that are complicated by institutional hierarchies and professional politics. Nevertheless, when true collaboration is achieved, there are significant benefits to be gained through this interdisciplinary approach and fruitful research emerges. The articles included in this issue showcase the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary collaboration in various ways. Additionally, we have collaboratively researched articles featuring such objects as a nineteenth-century Belgian Symbolist painting, a twentieth-century dress from the costume collection at Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands, and finally an unusual type of twentieth-century photograph known as orotone. We hope you enjoy reading these articles as much as we have working on them.
The first article describes an international collaboration between a group of conservators, conservation scientists and museum curators from the United States and Italy, represented by Francisco Trujillo (The Morgan Library & Museum, New York), Federica Pozzi (Centro per la Conservazione ed il Restauro dei Beni Culturali, Turin), Marie-France Lemay (Yale University Library, New Haven) and Richard Hark (Yale University, West Haven). This interdisciplinary team of scholars reflect on their experience collaboratively researching a set of fifteenth-century Italian tarocchi cards, known collectively as the Visconti-Sforza decks. Similar to the later tarot cards, more commonly associated with occultic practices such as divination, these earlier Italian prototypes would have served a broader function ranging from various trick-taking or gambling games. While these illuminated cards have been the focus of previous art historical studies, relatively little remains known about their material composition and technique - a point of shared fascination that provided the impetus for this international team of researchers to come together and complement the existing art historical record by focusing on the objects’ materiality.
Following this, we also have a second international collaboration written by Maria Brunskog (Uppsala University, Sweden) and Tetsuo Miyakoshi (Meiji University, Japan), focusing on a unique Japanese lacquerware collection compiled in the late eighteenth century by the Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg (1743-1828). Currently housed at the Museum of Ethnography in Stockholm, Sweden, these everyday objects - referred to in Japanese as urushi (漆, meaning the anacard sap used to create this specific form of lacquerware) - reflect the materials and techniques used by Japanese lacquerware craftsmen during a narrow time frame (c. 1775-1776, during which Thunberg traveled to Japan) and within a limited geographical area, centered around the town of Nagasaki, and along the feudal road between Kyoto and present-day Tokyo. Through their research, Brunskog and Miyakoshi offer a comparative analysis, where written descriptions provided in Thunberg’s personal travel diaries are juxtaposed against the technical analysis of the objects themselves.
Our third article, written by Jitske Jasperse (Instituto de Historia, CSIC, Madrid), Lucía Pereira-Pardo (Instituto de Ciencias del Patrimonio, INCIPIT, Santiago), Ana Cabrera Lafuente (Turespaña, Ministerio de Industria y Turismo), Paul Dryburgh (The National Archives, London), Elizabeth New (Department of History and Welsh History, Aberystwyth University, Wales), and Ina Vanden Berghe (The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, KIK-IRPA, Brussels), presents yet another interdisciplinary collaboration focusing on a notably understudied category of historical objects - medieval seal bags. These bags, textile or parchment wrappings designed to protect the wax seals that appended medieval charters, have rarely been photographed or documented in collection records, therefore making them difficult objects to study. This article presents an interdisciplinary approach towards studying these coverings, showcasing an exchange of expertise and ideas between conservation scientists, archival records specialists, textile experts and art historians. Specifically, the authors present the technical findings from a study featuring two medieval charters belonging to the collection of the National Archives in the United Kingdom, including their respective wax seals and textile bags. Drawing upon the diverse background of each scholar, the authors reflect on the contribution offered by each specialist area of knowledge, as well as some of the challenges and learning curves that they encountered along the way.
Continuing our issue theme of collaboration, we have a interview between the Materia editors and three professors who participated in Yale University’s 2022 Summer Teaching Institute in Technical Art History (STITAH) - a program designed to introduce professors of primarily art history, science and studio arts, to the technical study of objects. In this article, Hallie Meredith (Washington State University), Robert Hamilton (Spelman College, Atlanta) and Andrew Herschberger (Bowling Green State University, Ohio), reflect on their experiences participating in the STITAH program and share how this opportunity influenced their teaching.
In addition to these articles discussing various forms of international and interdisciplinary collaboration, we also have a number of articles presenting specifically focused case studies on a variety of objects. The first of these articles, written by Marie-Noëlle Grison, Robert Erdmann, Hendrik Hameeuw, David Lainé and Lieve Watteeuw, discusses a work by the fin-de-siécle Belgian Symbolist Alfred-Napoléon Delaunois (1875–1941). Entitled Vision de Moine (A Monk’s Vision) and painted in 1897, this mixed-media painting is currently in the collection of M Leuven, the municipal museum in Leuven, Belgium - which was also the artist’s hometown. Using a variety of non-invasive imaging techniques and instrumental analytical methods, the authors explore the complex materiality of the work, while also explaining some of its degradation patterns. This article also represents one of the few published technical studies on Delaunois’ oeuvre, as well as nineteenth-century Belgian Symbolists in general, making it an important contribution to expanding our technical knowledge of artists from this period and geographical region.
Another technical study focuses on the conservation of an early twentieth-century Dutch dress belonging to the fashion and costume collection at Kunstmuseum Den Haag. The dress, first designed in 1902-1903, bears few traces of its original shape, as it was later modified in 1908 to accommodate the original wearer’s pregnancy - documented as Anne Beatrix Hoogesteger. In this article, the authors César Rodríguez Salinas, Madelief Hohé (both Kunstmuseum Den Haag, Netherlands) and Dr. Livio Ferrazza (Institut Valencià de Conservació, Restauració i Investigación, Spain) discuss the material history of the dress, how it was transformed to fit the changing shape and needs of the mother, as well as how the details of its production have contributed to its degradation over the years. These results are further contextualised in relation to the late Victorian “dress reform” - an activist movement that took place adjacent to the contemporary women’s suffrage movement, where the focus was placed on creating practical and comfortable feminine fashion. One of the promoters of this trend was the London-based fashion and textile house Liberty & Co., whose comfortable and beautifully embroidered designs served as inspiration for contemporary dressmakers throughout Europe, including in the Netherlands and its colonies in Indonesia.
Our final technical case study for this issue features collaborative research conducted between the Pacific Northwest Conservation Science Consortium and the University of Washington (UW) Libraries by Vanessa Johnson, Ivanny Jácome-Valladares, Claire Kenny and Tami Lasseter Clare, examining the materials of an early photographic process known as orotone. Characterized by their particular shimmering, golden appearance, orotone photography - as well as its associated silvertone process - are underrepresented in scientific literature on photographic techniques. The results presented in this article offer a first glimpse at the complex layered components used to produce these photographs, pigments present in a selection of hand-colored orotones, and insight into the degradation of the photographs over time.
Finally, to wrap up our issue on interdisciplinary collaboration we have included another installment in our article series Voices from the Field, where we interview researchers working within the fields of conservation, conservation science and art history. For this issue we were able to interview three experienced and eminent researchers, represented by Erich Uffelman (Professor of Chemistry, Washington & Lee University, Virginia), Erma Hermens (Director of the Hamilton Kerr Institute, University of Cambridge) and Sabrina Norlander Eliasson (Professor of Art History, Stockholm University and Swedish Institute for Classical Studies in Rome). The interview questions are varied in scope, focusing on topics like how the various interviewees came to focus on technical art history as part of their career paths, as well as some of the challenges that they have faced personally when it comes to interdisciplinary collaboration. More than anything, we were keen to know how their various backgrounds and expertise can complement technical research in a collaborative setting - What can their viewpoint offer that another cannot? Also, how can we encourage interdisciplinary teamwork and a meeting of viewpoints? All of these questions remain highly relevant as the field of technical art history continues to expand and evolve, which is why our editors at Materia aim to keep these discussions going, while also building connections between researchers in the adjacent disciplines.
As always, the Materia team has many people that we would like to thank who help us make this publication possible. Our first shout out goes to our trusted and hardworking copy editor Mary Cason - your expertise and insight are always appreciated, as is your conscientiousness and professionalism. Moreover, for this issue we would like to thank all of our peer reviewers for their efforts with the articles. The peer review process is incredibly important for us and continues to help us improve the quality of the research we publish. Our tech team would also like to express their continued gratitude to the Getty’s Quire team for their incredible open-source publication platform and their continued help in troubleshooting (special shout out to Erin Dunigan). Finally, a huge thank you to Joyce Hill Stoner for her recent donation in support of Materia’s community-building and sustainability efforts; we hope to make Materia even better and more accessible–thank you for believing in us!
Finally, all of us here at Materia would like to especially thank our readers for your continued support and interest in our journal. It is your enthusiasm that consistently drives and inspires us to put out new issues with more exciting content.
Thank you and happy reading
The Materia team
Anouk Jonker
Bianca Garcia
Courtney Books
Cynthia Prieur
Douglas MacLennon
Emma Jansson
Julie Ribits
LaStarsha McGarity
Lucia Bay
Morgan Wylder
Roxane Sperber
Sami Norling