Portrait of Giovanni(?) Arnolfini and His Wife

~~In the previous chapter, points of tension were identified in three of Lewis’s paintings. Quotations from and allusions to disparate nineteenth-century texts shifted awkwardly across their surfaces and, as each source was acknowledged, modes of perception and understanding shifted as well. In this chapter, the highly referential...

~~In the spring of 1867, the New York correspondent for San Francisco’s Alta California filed a report on his visit to the annual exhibition at the National Academy of Design, the nation’s most prestigious art establishment. The...

Technical examination of the paint layer can confirm a work’s age or authenticity and add to knowledge of the painting’s execution and the artist’s intended effects. Examination can address either the materials or the ways they were handled—the techniques. Study of paint materials offers information that is specific but of limited interpretive use to the art historian. Pigment identification can deny (but rarely confirm) a paintings age, or can identify areas of repaint. Precise identification …