Bull's Head and Mermaid - The Bernstein Project - Österreichische ...

The Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague, the National Library
of the Netherlands, will make the software from the
WILC available and provide facilities for keyboarding into
the database.
WIES is part of the European Union-funded project Bernstein
– The Memory of Paper: http://www.bernstein.oeaw.ac.at
Literature: Gerard van Thienen, Astrid Enderman, Maria
Dolores Diaz-Miranda Macías: El papel y las filigranas de los
incunables impresos en España, a través de los diversos
ejemplaros conservados en las bibliotecas del mundo, in:
Syntagma, Revista del Instituto de Historia del Libro y de la
Lectura, 2, 2008, pp. 239–261.
G.v.T. (G.v.T. / C.P.-K.)
Database of Watermarks and Paper Used for
Prints and Drawings Developed by the Dutch
University Institute for Art History in Florence
(NIKI)
In September 2001, the Dutch University Institute for Art
History in Florence (NIKI) launched an initiative to develop a
database for storing and publishing the watermarks and
paper structures of paper used by artists for prints and
drawings in the period 1450–1800. Thanks to the data
now included and the planned addition of new data in the
years to come, the database is becoming a unique tool for
the art historical and scientific analysis of prints and drawings.
It will offer a centralized collection of large numbers of
watermarks, will give detailed information on the different
kinds of paper used by individual artists, and will make important
data available for dating and authenticating these
works of art. Watermark data from museums and collections
around the world will be stored in the database and
made available for public use. The database will be particularly
useful for art historians, art collectors, art dealers and
all others interested in this kind of material.
The NIKI has photographed, X-rayed and collected in its
database watermark images and data that have been generated
in the framework of a number of research and exhibition
projects on artists of the Italian Renaissance, including
Fra Bartolommeo (1472–1518) and Michelangelo
(1475–1564). Thanks to the generous cooperation of art
historians and print collections in Europe and the United
States, the NIKI database project has also been able to include
watermarks of a number of other artists, such as Lucas
van Leyden (1494–1533) and Rembrandt (1609–1669).
Currently, nearly 2,400 X-ray images of watermarks found
in the paper of Rembrandt’s etchings have been incorporated
into the database.
Moreover, the NIKI is participating in a number of research
projects in which watermarks play an important role.
Together with the University of Leiden and the Dresdner
Kupferstich-Kabinett, it is undertaking a study of the paper
and watermarks of the early Dutch and Flemish drawings
from between 1450 and 1600 owned by these two institutions.
In the near future, the watermarks of the Dürer prints
held by the Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt will be
retrieved and also included in the database.
Earlier research has shown that much of the paper that
was used for early prints and drawings does not have a watermark
at all, or contains watermarks that are only partially
visible. This makes it necessary to retrieve not only watermarks,
but as far as possible also to record the entire paper
structure of each sheet.
The NIKI database is interlinked with those of the other
partners in the Bernstein project through the same classification
of watermark types and motifs, as well as by other
paper parameters such as chain line distance, watermark
measurements, etc.
As the artistic and geographic focus of the NIKI watermark
database is not only Germany, Italy and the Netherlands,
but extends to the whole art-on-paper production in
Europe in the period between 1450 and 1800, new project
partners willing to cooperate with retrieving, furnishing
and/or adding new paper and watermark data to the database
are welcomed.
NIKI retrieves watermarks and paper structure with a soft
X-ray device and with image subtraction technology. As
both are mobile, it is able to offer its services to retrieve watermark
and paper images in museums or any other public
or private owner of prints or drawings. The retrieved images
will be included in the database and the owner of the
work will receive a set of images in digital form.
Corpus Chartarum Italicarum (CCI)
G.D. / B.W.M (B.W.M. / C.P.-K.)
Research has been carried out at the Istituto centrale per il
restauro e la conservazione del patrimonio archivistico e librario
on the approximately 5,000 watermarked sheets that
compose the Corpus Chartarum Italicarum with the goal of
identifying dimensional and typological characteristics, and
of measuring useful parameters that might provide useful
information on the quality of sheets and the methods used
to manufacture them. The research project – launched in
2006 – was divided into three distinct phases:
The first activity involved the thorough dusting of all
sheets composing the Corpus, which were generally found
to be in a good state of preservation. Dust removal was effected
using a professional-grade vacuum cleaner suitable
for performing conservation work. Next, the sheets were removed
from their old folders and these were replaced with
folders made from an archival quality material (lining card
made from pure cellulose fibre of neutral pH). All data,
both printed and handwritten, were transferred from the
old folders to the new ones.
In the second phase, instrumental readings were taken
relating to thickness, permeability, surface texture (i.e.
roughness/smoothness), and whiteness levels.
The third and final phase of the project consisted in the
digital reproduction of sheets, in both raking light and in
transparency. Watermark motifs were identified, their subject
matters were defined, and they were traced in repertories.
An online database has been created and is accessible
via the ICPAL’s website (which can be visited at:
http://www.patologialibro.beniculturali.it). The data bank
contains images of all the watermarks, together with historical
data and the aforementioned instrumental data.
97