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Description: Facture: Conservation Science Art History Volume 4: Series, Multiples, Replicas
The complex themes of series, multiples, and replicas are examined in the essays of Facture, volume 4. Highlighting works in various media, created during different time periods, authors explore the reasons for replication...
PublisherNational Gallery of Art
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Preface
The complex themes of series, multiples, and replicas are examined in the essays of Facture, volume 4. Highlighting works in various media, created during different time periods, authors explore the reasons for replication, whether contemporaneously by an artist’s own hand or workshop, subsequently as a posthumous creation, or recurrently as a preferred practice.
Three essays examine serialization during the Renaissance. The first probes the intriguing relationship among three portraits of Giuliano de’ Medici by Sandro Botticelli. Likely part of a propagandistic effort to solidify his power after his brother’s death, Lorenzo de’ Medici commissioned artists to produce paintings immortalizing Giuliano as a martyr. Through meticulous comparative study of these paintings from different museum collections, the authors combine technical and iconographic correlations to provide new interpretations of the portraits. Another contribution considers bronze portrait busts by Leone Leoni of the Habsburg Emperor Charles V. Although bronze is often considered a medium for serialization, these busts were discovered to be unique casts through x-ray and metallurgical analysis. Tantalizing results from technical and art-historical study further link the fabrication of the National Gallery bronze with northern instead of Italian practices and tentatively trace the provenance to the Austrian court. A third essay addresses Paolo Veronese’s working methods and penchant for creating multiple versions of favorite subjects. Two paintings of The Finding of Moses, one autograph, one considered a copy, were carefully reevaluated in conjunction with a drawing of the same subject. Sensitive conservation treatment that included removal of disfiguring overpaint and technical imaging combined with recent scholarship successfully attributes both paintings to the master.
Attribution is also the focus of an essay on the Gallery’s iconic Mercury atop the Rotunda fountain in the West Building. Clearly derived from Giambologna’s celebrated work though made several centuries later, the Washington Mercury bears no definitive attribution or clear provenance. Scrutinizing the histories of many versions of the sculpture by Renaissance and later artists, and comparing the technical and iconographic differences, the authors propose exciting new attributions as well as a possible Russian connection.
Essays on works from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries include a study of Auguste Rodin’s practice of serializing his own sculpture. This fascinating analysis discusses the notion of “original” in his repertoire; whether the casting sequence, earlier or later, contributes to the importance of a bronze; and how the relationship among clay, plaster, and bronze sculptures relates to creative process or authorship. Creative process and sequence are further assessed in a noteworthy essay on Vincent van Gogh’s portraits of the baby Marcelle Roulin. Three paintings, including one from a private collection, form part of a meticulous technical study to address questions such as which is the initial version and what relationship these freehand copies have to each other. An important international collaboration, the study reveals the sequence in which the portraits were painted and the artist’s reasons for painting each. Another contribution describes the innovative conservation treatment of a series of opaque watercolor paintings. Unique in the oeuvre of Edward Steichen, these watercolors depict whimsical characters from the imaginary Oochen Republic. Careful investigation into the materials and techniques of this extraordinary series enabled the authors to devise a masterful conservation treatment consistent with the artist’s intent and palette.
Autonomous works of art composed of serialized parts and series of works consisting of independent entities are the themes of the final contributions. Jean Dubuffet’s formidable Site à l’homme assis is formed from six separately cast epoxy resin elements enlarged from the Hourloupe series. Through painstaking research and material analysis, the author describes Dubuffet’s working methods modified to realize his vision, from small, carved polystyrene models, to enlarged, cast modular forms ultimately combined into unique three-dimensional collages. Hoarfrost Editions by Robert Rauschenberg, on the other hand, is a print series on fabric whose nine prints are also individual works. They were created at Gemini G.E.L. (Graphic Editions Limited), the Los Angeles artists’ workshop that specializes in editions. Recent scholarship, including research in Gemini archives and interviews of printers, in tandem with extensive technical study of the Gallery’s complete edition, impressively characterizes these extraordinary works and reveals Rauschenberg’ s creative process.
With the publication of Facture, volume 4, the dialogue across disciplines continues. Authors’ explorations of issues relating to serialization and to the relationships among multiple versions of works lead to intriguing conclusions. Distinct expertise coalesces to offer exceptional insights into extraordinary works of art.
Daphne Barbour and Suzanne Quillen Lomax
Editors