Studying 18th-Century Paintings and Works of Art on Paper

ISBN 978-1-909492-23-3
This book contains papers presented at the international technical art history conference Studying 18th Century Paintings & Art on Paper which focused on artists’ techniques and materials, source research, conservation science, the history of science and technology, and the history of trade and pharmacy during the 18th century. Tradition and changes in artistic practices were examined in the light of the establishment of a series of national art academies in Europe throughout the century. A scientific peer review committee selected the papers from a range of high quality presentations. The papers are lavishly illustrated and cover the making of paintings and artworks on paper throughout the 18th century, thereby illustrating a vast range of artists’ and workshop practices.
The conference was organised by the Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation – CATS – in collaboration with Nationalmuseet (Stockholm), Metropolia University of Applied Science (Helsinki), and the Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo (Oslo).
Archetype Publications
www.archetype.co.uk
in association with CATS Proceedings, II, 2014 Edited by Helen Evans and Kimberley Muir
C ATS Proceedings, II, 2014 Edited by H
elen Evans and K im
berley M uir
Studying 18th-Century Paintings and W orks of Art on Paper
Studying 18th-Century Paintings and Works of Art on Paper
A rchetype Publications
STUDYING 18TH-CENTURY PAINTINGS AND WORKS OF ART ON PAPER
CATS Proceedings, II, 2014
Archetype Publications
in association with
is online publication is available as a paperback book from Archetype Publications, www.archetype.co.uk, ISBN 978-909492-23-3
First published 2015 by Archetype Publications Ltd in association with CATS, Copenhagen
Archetype Publications Ltd c/o International Academic Projects 1 Birdcage Walk London SW1H 9JJ www.archetype.co.uk
© 2015 CATS, Copenhagen
e Centre for Art Technological Studies and Conservation (CATS) was made possible by a substantial donation by the Villum Foundation and the Velux Foundation, and is a collaborative research venture between the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK), the National Museum of Denmark (NMD) and the School of Conservation (SoC) at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation.
ISBN: 978-1-909492-23-3
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. e publisher would be pleased to rectify any omissions in future reprints.
Front cover illustration: Joshua Reynolds, Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness, c.1776, oil, resin and wax on canvas, 127.8 × 102.4 cm, e Wallace Collection, inv. P48. (© e Wallace Collection. Photo: e National Gallery, London)
Back cover illustrations: (from left to right) X-radiograph of Jens Juel, Sophie Birgitta Mathiesen, 1760–1802, oil on canvas, 45.0 × 37.0 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. KMS4795 (© SMK); Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini, Apollo, 1718, oil on canvas, 192 × 262 cm, Mauritshuis, e Hague, inv. 1135, (photo: Margareta Svensson); Nicolai Abildgaard, e Wounded Philoctetes, 1775, oil on canvas, 123 × 175.5 cm, Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, inv. KMS586 (© SMK); José del Castillo, Male Nude, 1759, chalk on paper, 55.4 × 42.4 cm, Universidad Complutense, Madrid, drawing 1944 (© e Library of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid.)
Printed on acid-free paper
Designed by Marcus Nichols at PDQ Digital Media Solutions Ltd. Typeset by PDQ Digital Media Solutions Ltd, Bungay Printed and bound in Great Britain by Latimer Trend & Co. Ltd, Plymouth
v
CONTENTS
Foreword vii
Discipline and wonder: the 18th-century art academy and the invention of the artist as a free practitioner 1 Mikkel Bogh
e effect of Prussian blue on the technique of the Danish court painters Hendrik Krock and Benoît le Coffre 7 Loa Ludvigsen, Mikala Bagge and Vibeke Rask
Breaking new ground: investigating Pellegrini’s use of ground in the Golden Room of the Mauritshuis 16 Carol Pottasch, Susan Smelt and Ralph Haswell
Liotard’s pastels: techniques of an 18th-century pastellist 31 Leila Sauvage and Cécile Gombaud
An investigation of the painting technique in portraits by Jens Juel 46 Tine Louise Slotsgaard
72 florin for colours, white and glue: the Tiepolos, the Veninos and Würzburg 58 Andreas Burmester and Stefanie Correll
e coarse painter and his position in 17th- and 18th-century Dutch decorative painting 70 Piet Bakker, Margriet van Eikema Hommes and Katrien Keune
A ‘painted chamber’ in Beverwijk by Jacobus Luberti Augustini: novel insights into the working methods 83 and painting practices in a painted wall-hanging factory Ige Verslype, Johanneke Verhave, Susan Smelt, Katrien Keune, Hinke Sigmond and Margriet van Eikema Hommes
Eighteenth-century practices in the art academies in Spain: the use of paper in prints and drawings 96 Clara de la Peña Mc Tigue
Nicolai Abildgaard: an 18th-century Danish artist and his paper 109 Ingelise Nielsen and Niels Borring
Semi-mechanical transfer methods in Nicolai Abildgaard’s drawings 118 Niels Borring
Canvas supports in paintings by Nicolai Abildgaard: fabrics and formats 128 Troels Filtenborg
‘1st olio after Capivi’: copaiba balsam in the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds 140 Alexandra Gent, Rachel Morrison and Nelly von Aderkas
Ferdinand Bauer’s Flora Graeca colour code 153 Richard Mulholland
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FOREWORD
is is the second CATS conference proceedings with papers from the international conference Technology & Practice: Studying 18th Century Paintings & Art on Paper. is two-day technical art history conference was held on 2–3 June 2014 at the 18th-century Frederiksberg Palace in Copenhagen. e conference was organised by CATS in collaboration with Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Science in Helsinki, Finland, Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden, and the University of Oslo, Norway.
e conference focused on artists’ techniques and mate- rials, source research, conservation science, the history of science and technology, trade and pharmacy during the 18th century. Speakers explored tradition and changes in artistic practices in the light of the establishment of a series of national art academies in Europe throughout the century. e talks included topics such as workshop practice and materials, art historical and technical approaches to documentary evidence, and technical examination and the analysis of paintings and drawings. Issues of trade, supply and questions concerning the demand for materials for diverse artistic expressions were also analysed and discussed. Two keynote presentations and 16 papers were presented of which 15 appear in this publi- cation following peer review and editing by our two most capable editors.
We hope you will find this second volume of CATS confer- ence proceedings as enjoyable and enlightening as the previous one and that the information contained herein will stimulate further research into aspects of studying the technology and practice of 18th-century paintings and art on paper. As with the first CATS Proceedings, this volume is also available as a paperback book from Archetype Publications.
On behalf of the organisers Prof Dr Jørgen Wadum
Director of CATS
Dr Helen Evans Paper Conservator Nationalmuseum Stockholm Sweden
Dr Kimberley Muir Assistant Research Conservator e Art Institute of Chicago Chicago USA
Organising committee
CATS Mette Kokkenborg; Johanne Marie Nielsen; Andreas Swane; Daniel Rosenstrøm; Jack Johnsen; Astrid Wiik; Marion Limbrecht; Jørgen Wadum
Scientific committee
Prof Dr Bruno G. Brunetti, Dipartimento di Chimica and Centre SMAArt, Universita’ di Perugia, Perugia, Italy
Mads Chr. Christensen, MSc, Conservation Scientist, National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
Rica Jones, Conservator in Private Practice, UK
Dr Ingelise Nielsen, Associate Professor and Head of Department, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Dr Ashok Roy, Director of Collections, e National Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Tannar Ruuben, MSc, MA, Senior Lecturer, Conservator of Paintings, Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Science, Helsinki, Finland
Mikkel Scharff, MSc, Associate Professor, Head of the Conservation School and Department, e Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Kriste Sibul, MSc, MA, Director of Preservation, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, Sweden
Dorthe V. P. Sommer, MSc, Assistant Professor, e Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation, School of Conservation, Copenhagen, Denmark
Prof Dr Ron Spronk, Professor of Art History, Queen’s University, Kingston, Canada and Hieronymus Bosch Chair, Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, e Netherlands
Dr Noëlle Streeton, Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, Conservation and History, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
Jesper Svenningsen, PhD Fellow, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
Dr Anna Vila, Senior Conservation Scientist, CATS, Copenhagen, Denmark
Prof Dr Jørgen Wadum, Director of Conservation & Director of CATS, Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, Denmark
Sponsors
1
DISCIPLINE AND WONDER: THE 18TH-CENTURY ART ACADEMY AND THE INVENTION OF THE ARTIST AS A FREE PRACTITIONER
Mikkel Bogh
ABSTRACT How did artists acquire knowledge of their fields of practice – whether painting, sculpture or drawing – in the 18th century? What was the nature and content of artistic training in a century that saw the establishment in many, if not most, European countries of academies or schools of art after the French model? What were the inherent tensions in a formal training system the purpose of which was to professionalise, to discipline and to secure the freedom of the artist? And how did the new training institutions sit in the context of an emerging art market that was gradually replacing the traditional art patronage system? A discussion of practices relating to 18th-century painting and art on paper, with a particular focus on the material and technical aspects of artistic production, should not only address the use, production and the availability of specific types of colour, paper, canvas, tools etc. but should also take into account the changing conditions of the making and training of artists including the role of new institutions such as the art academy during this period. is paper examines the function and workings of the art academies and their relation to artists’ and artisans’ workshops during this century. My argument revolves around the apparent paradox that the institutionalisation of art training and the academic disciplining of artists emerged at the same time in history as, and is intimately bound up with, the notion of the free artist.
Introduction
By and large the academy of art is an invention of the 18th century, but the academy as a public art school had its impor- tant predecessors in 16th-century Florence and notably in 17th-century Paris. e establishment in 1648 of the French Royal Academy of Painting (Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture) was motivated by the ambition on the part of those artists working under royal protection, the so-called brevetaires, to form an arena for the discussion, promotion and distribution of painting and sculpture that was independ- ent of the restrictive guild system with its community rituals as well as its rigid regulations regarding techniques, materi- als, nationality and choice of subject.1 Many artists working outside the protection of the guild felt the need to develop a more flexible organisation, especially in light of the many new commissions emerging as a result of a building boom following a boosted French economy. In order for the acad- emy to gain royal protection and to acquire state funding, the institution had to convince officials that it was a school
offering teaching programmes for young talent. e need to shape an institutional identity in opposition to the guild gave rise to a whole rhetoric of art versus crafts. us the academy was seen as a place where the theory and practice of fine art, not just the craft of painting, was taught. Here aspiring art- ists would be offered an opportunity to rise above the level of the skilled craftsman through a theoretically informed pro- gramme based on intellectual ideas and drawing. is would take place in an institution where ideals of beauty, themes and composition were discussed among peers. e teaching pro- gramme developed in a new and more systematic direction under the directorships of Jean-Baptiste Colbert from 1661 and, from 1683, Charles Le Brun. From this point in time the institution was intimately bound up with efforts to reorient and ultimately control artistic production in order for it to serve the absolutist monarchy and the building of the nation. In the case of the French Royal Academy, a reorientation towards a specific French idiom implied the development of a ‘classical’ and grand style that was deemed non-Italian as well as non-Spanish.2
MIKKEL BOGH
2
However it took time for this idea to disseminate to other European countries, partly because of financial issues. In 1720 there existed only three or four academies of art and only six new academies opened during the following two decades. As late as 1740, less than 10 academies offered teaching curricu- lums.3 Academies still worked mainly as professional forums and clubs where peers could meet and exchange ideas relat- ing to philosophy, geometry and literature, and where norms and standards of the profession could be agreed – most did not function as public art schools in the modern sense. All this changed dramatically after the mid-century. Over the next four decades more than 100 art academies and public art schools emerged, most of which now included teaching duties. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, the fast establish- ment of institutions of artistic training ran parallel to the development of a neo-classical style in the arts. Excavations beginning in Herculaneum (1738) and in Pompeii (1748), together with the publication of German art historian J.J. Wincklemann’s seminal works on Greek art, helped to lay the foundation for this neo-classical fashion. e classical Greek canon was promoted as the new norm of contemporary style and focus was once again put on the human figure. e new style, and the conformism that accompanied it, offered a sort of impetus for the adoption of normative curricula, as well as for the introduction of academic standards and abstract ideals against which observations of nature could be measured and corrected.
Pevsner probably overemphasised the stylistic back- ground of the almost explosive emergence of public art schools throughout Europe, even though academies evolved from an anti-Rococo trend. e need for normativity was not only a question of the stylistic rigour of classical style and of making sure art students got it right. Training students in a more or less classicist style, based on a Renaissance principle
of instruction through drawing, fixed in a set of academic and institutional norms, was, at least in smaller European nations such as Denmark, partly a means of producing local artists of high quality to avoid dependence on expensively imported artists from France, and partly a way of securing control of official imagery. At a time when the art market was already flourishing and, to a growing extent, artists’ productions were following routes other than those provided by patrons and official commissions, there was an imagined risk that artists would become too idiosyncratic in their choice of subject and style. e transformation of the area of artistic production and distribution, as well as the development of new relationships between artists and consumers, did not happen overnight – it was only by the mid-19th century that the art market and art institutions such as museums, art criticism, auctions etc. were in place as a coherent art system. But this development had already begun in the late 17th century and even had its pre- cursors in cities such as Antwerp and Frankfurt back in the mid-16th century, long before academies assumed the role of quality assurance institutions previously played by the guilds.4
Antoine Watteau’s famous late work Gersaint’s Signboard (1721) (Fig. 1) offers a hint of what an early 18th-century art market would have looked like. Far from being the place where artists’ works were commissioned directly by patrons, dealers such as the Paris art dealer Gersaint (for whose small boutique Watteau made this outdoor sign) had a great variety of artists, themes and even styles on display and in storage. Gersaint in this painting is offering works made by artists for an anonymous albeit noble public of both ama- teurs and connoisseurs, who in this painting are coming with a view to enjoying hitherto unseen work. In the context of a European art market appealing to or even, as it were, gen- erating independent artists, the art academy had the dual function of both delivering professional local artists for a
Fig. 1 Antoine Watteau, Gersaint’s Signboard, 1721, oil on canvas, 163 × 308 cm, Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin. 
DISCIPLINE AND WONDER: THE 18TH-CEN TURY ART ACADEMY AND THE INVEN TION OF THE ARTIST AS A FREE PRACTITIONER
3
buying public as well as setting the standards of what was appropriate including standards of decorum, legibility and interpretation.5 Officially sanctioned art, including work dis- tributed to anonymous consumers in the art market, was to be correct in tone, taste and content. But most importantly, each state and each prince in the second half of the 18th cen- tury considered the art academy as a way of guaranteeing that the most talented and skilled artisans would be raised to the level of artists and architects. Thus the art academy ensured that every state would have in its possession highly educated artists to take on commissions from the royal household, the aristocracy and the wealthiest bourgeois citizens. The abil- ity to provide decorative, built and representational solutions for the absolutist state and its highest ranking proponents and representatives was, from the outset, the most important official rationale of the art academy. But the academy cannot be seen as distinct from the emerging modern art market and the other new institutions of art.
The workshop and the academy
Transformations not only took place between artist and buy- ers or consumers of art – the commercialisation of the art market had been under way since at least the mid-16th cen- tury. Now an entire system of art was in progress, and the art academy was only one institutional factor in the creation of a system that had not previously existed. Of course, ever since the Renaissance there had been a growing awareness that ‘fine art’ was a profession or a category of its own, but as late as the first half of the 18th century there was still no clear distinction made between fine art understood as paint- ing, sculpture and engraving and any other business in the production of images such as shop signs, furniture paint- ing, applied art etc. Encyclopaedias in the early part of the century did not use beaux-art as an area of knowledge in its own right. Sculpture and architecture were mentioned in cat- egories such as ‘mechanics’ whereas painting existed under the category ‘optics’,6 both being part of general mathemat- ics. However, d’Alembert, Diderot and the other editors of the French Encyclopédie (1751) suggested a totally different and new systematisation of human knowledge, divided into three headings: ‘memory’, ‘reason’ and ‘imagination’. Painting, sculpture and engraving belonged to the latter category. As imaginative and poetic areas of knowledge, on a par with, yet distinct from, science and the humanities, a clear line of demarcation was now being drawn around the fine arts sepa- rating these from crafts-based image practices. The gradual opening up to the public of museums of art, the advent of the juried exhibition beginning with the annual salon intro- duced by the French Royal Academy in Paris in 1737, as well as the birth and development of art criticism through which a reading and art-consuming public would get evalu- ative interpretations of recent exhibitions and publication, together with the segregation of the fine arts as an area of knowledge suggested by the Encyclopédie, formed part of the institutional and discursive process leading to the definition
of art as a separate and autonomous…