Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe

This book traces the development of scientific conservation and technical art history. It takes as its starting point the final years of the nineteenth century, which saw the establishment of the first museum laboratory in Berlin, and ground-breaking international conferences on art history and conservation held in pre-World War I Germany. It follows the history of conservation and art history until the 1940s when, from the ruins of World War II, new institutions such as the Istituto Centrale del Restauro emerged, which would shape the post-war art and conservation world. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, conservation history, historiography, and history of science and humanities.

1 Introduction: Experts in the Interbellum Sven Dupré Part 1 Science, Authentication and Issues of Conservation 2 "We Cannot Splash Light onto Our Palettes": The 1893 Munich Exhibition and Congress and Its Public Demand for Research on Painting Materials and Techniques Kathrin Kinseher 3 A. P. Laurie and the Scientific Appreciation of Art Geert Vanpaemel 4 Seeing Through the (Old) Masters: The Crisis of Connoisseurship and the Emergence of Radiographic Art Expertise Uta Kornmeier 5 Rome 1930, the International Conference on the Scientific Analysis of Artworks and Its Legacy in Italy Marco Cardinali Part 2 Education and Professionalisation 6 Mending, Sticking, and Repairing: Reconstructing Conservation Expertise in Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Caitlin R. O’Grady 7 Wissenschaft, Vocation, or Bildung?: Debating the Sites and Aims of German Art History at the End of the Nineteenth Century Anne Van Dam 8 Education in the Art and Conservation Field in German Countries Michael Von Der Goltz 9 Experiments in a Teaching Museum: The Fogg’s "Laboratory for Art" Francesca G. Bewer Part 3 Museums and Institutions 10 Omnium Gatherum to a ‘Treasury of Art and Science’: The Development of Conservation Expertise at the Ashmolean Museum Morwenna Blewett 11 The (In)visibility of the Paintings Restorers of the Rijksmuseum in the First Half of the Twentieth Century Esther Van Duijn 12 Gemäldekunde. German Pioneers of the ‘Science of Painting’ Andreas Burmester 13 Invention as Necessity: The Salvage of Italian Frescoes During World War II Cathleen Hoeniger 14 Expertise, Multiple Actors, and Multiple Voices Noémie Etienne

Sven Dupré is Director of the Research Institute for History and Art History, and a Professor of History of Art, Science and Technology at Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam. He was PI of the ARTECHNE project "Technique in the Arts: Concepts, Practices, Expertise, 1500–1950," supported by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant (2015–2021). Jenny Boulboullé is a historian and philosopher, studying hands-on practices in the arts and sciences. She has held research positions at Columbia University, Utrecht University, and theUniversity of Amsterdam as a member of the "Making and Knowing" project and the ARTECHNE project, and at the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.