The stylus revealed: A metalpoint identification study of fifteenth- And sixteenth-century Italian drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Paper Conservator: Journal of the Institute of Paper Conservation

Volumn 28, Issue , 2004, Pages 75-86

  Dahm, Kristi ^a  

^a Designed Objects Sch Art Inst C   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AGING OF MATERIALS; BRONZE; COLOR; FLUORESCENCE; INFRARED RADIATION; MUSEUMS; NONDESTRUCTIVE EXAMINATION; TIN; X RAY SPECTROSCOPY;

METALPOINT DRAWINGS; MULTISPECTRAL INFRA-RED REFLECTOGRAPHY (MSIRR); PARTICLE INDUCED X-RAY EMISSIONS (PIXE); X-RAY FLUORESCENCE SPECTROMETRY (XRF);

PAPER;

BRONZE; COLOR; DRAWINGS; MANUSCRIPTS; MUSEUMS; PAPER; TIN;

EID: 6944230950     PISSN: 03094227     EISSN: None     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/03094227.2004.9638642     Document Type: Review

References (27)

1. Watrous, J., The Craft of Old Master Drawings (Madison WI: University of Wisconsin, 1957).
2. Watrous 22.
3. e siècle à la pointe métallique du Musée des Beaux-Art de Lille', Techne 13-14 (2001) 78-83; Montalbano, L., Frosinini, C., Duval, A., Guicharnaud, H. and G. Casu, 'Italian metalpoint drawings: International studies of the artistic technique', ICOM Committee for Conservation: Preprints of Thirteenth Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 2002, 609-612.
4. e siècle à la pointe métallique du Musée des Beaux-Art de Lille', Techne 13-14 (2001) 78-83; Montalbano, L., Frosinini, C., Duval, A., Guicharnaud, H. and G. Casu, 'Italian metalpoint drawings: International studies of the artistic technique', ICOM Committee for Conservation: Preprints of Thirteenth Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 2002, 609-612.
5. e siècle à la pointe métallique du Musée des Beaux-Art de Lille', Techne 13-14 (2001) 78-83; Montalbano, L., Frosinini, C., Duval, A., Guicharnaud, H. and G. Casu, 'Italian metalpoint drawings: International studies of the artistic technique', ICOM Committee for Conservation: Preprints of Thirteenth Triennial Meeting, Rio de Janeiro, 2002, 609-612.
6. Shelly Fletcher and Lisha Glinsman, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, personal communication 2001.
7. Roberts, J. and C. Pedretti, 'Drawings by Leonardo da Vinci at Windsor newly revealed by ultra-violet light", Burlington Magazine 119 (1977): 396-408.
8. Fuchs, R. and R. Mursek, 'New methods of reflectography with special filters and image processing techniques: Examination of materials, writings and underdrawings', Optical Technologies in the Humanities, eds. D. Dirksen and G. von Bally (Heidelberg: Springer-Verlag, 1997) 108-119.
9. Fuchs, R., Oltrogge, D. and O. Hahn, 'Finito and non finito: Drawing and painting techniques in Botticelli's Divine Comedy', Sandra Botticelli, the drawings for Dante's Divine Comedy (London: Royal Academy, 2000) 335-341.
10. Elizabeth Walmsley, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, personal communication 2001.
11. C. Cennini, The Craftsman's Handbook, trans. D.V. Thompson Jr. (New York: Dover, 1954) 9.
12. Gettings, R. and G. Stout, Painting Materials (New York: Dover, 1966) 99.
13. Cennini 4.
14. Cennini 10. A study conducted by E.A. Luybavskaya demonstrated that sturgeon glue is stronger, harder and more brittle than hide glue. One can speculate that the abrasive pigments could have been too tightly bound in fish glue to facilitate drawing with ease, or that a fish-glue ground could have become too brittle, resulting in flaking over time. See Luybavskaya, E. A., 'Investigation of properties of protein glues', ICOM Committee for Conservation: Preprints of Ninth Triennial Meeting, Dresden, 1990, 47-50.
15. Cennini 5.
16. Cennini 7.
17. Meder, J., Mastery of Drawing (New York: Arabis, 1978) 64.
18. Cennini 4, n. 1.
19. da Vinci, Leonardo, A Treatise on Painting, trans. A. Philip McMahon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956).
20. Bergwerk- und Probierbüchlein, trans. Anneliese Grünhaldt Sisco and Cyril Stanley Smith (New York: American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1949); Biringuccio, Vannoccio, La Pirotechnia, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Basic Books, 1959); Agricola, George, De Re Metalica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (New York: Dover, 1950).
21. Bergwerk- und Probierbüchlein, trans. Anneliese Grünhaldt Sisco and Cyril Stanley Smith (New York: American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1949); Biringuccio, Vannoccio, La Pirotechnia, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Basic Books, 1959); Agricola, George, De Re Metalica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (New York: Dover, 1950).
22. Bergwerk- und Probierbüchlein, trans. Anneliese Grünhaldt Sisco and Cyril Stanley Smith (New York: American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 1949); Biringuccio, Vannoccio, La Pirotechnia, trans. Cyril Stanley Smith and Martha Teach Gnudi (New York: Basic Books, 1959); Agricola, George, De Re Metalica, trans. Herbert Clark Hoover and Lou Henry Hoover (New York: Dover, 1950).
23. The detection of mercury in fifteenth-century silverpoint drawings could be interpreted as evidence of silver amalgamation practised prior to 1520.
24. Biringuccio 156-158.
25. For best results one would use a barium target to identify silver, but a barium target was not available for this study. A barium target would generate X-rays from 32.19 to 36.37keV and provide better resolution of the silver K-lines from 21.99to 24.94keV. Analysis of the facsimiles conducted by Lisha Glinsman at the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, confirmed that a barium target provides better resolution for silver peaks.
26. Montalbano et al. PIXE analysis of Filippino Lippi drawings identified silverpoint containing copper and zinc. No zinc was detected in the Lippi drawing analysed for this study.
27. Forlani Tempesti, Anna, The Robert Lehman Collection, Vol. 5, Italian Fifteenth to Seventeenth-Century Drawings (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1991) 234.