proposal part b - The Bernstein Project

CIP-ICT PSP Call 4 7
Pilot B
[Imperialle]
B1.2 EU and national dimension
The relevance of Imperialle and its aim of digitising extraordinary European masterpieces and allowing their
accessibility through Europeana will be explained below. The selected masterpieces are carriers of our
multicultural heritage. Works by Peter Paul Rubens, Albrecht Dürer, Johann Sebastian Bach or Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart are without doubt a fundamental part of the European cultural heritage of which we are most
proud.
Paper technology, as well as the structure and watermarks found in individual pieces of paper are important
elements for the geographical placement and dating of the sheets of paper used for drawings, manuscripts,
musical compositions or architectural sketches and plans. For centuries, paper technology has had a significant
impact on the propagation of cultural and intellectual assets within Europe, from documents to books, drawings,
prints and graphic works. In addition, however, to its cultural importance for communication or visual
creations, the paper itself contains a multitude of information about manufacturing processes, the development
of paper technology in different regions on the European continent, as well as trade routes and distribution
channels.
Towards the end of the 13 th century, Italian paper manufacturers introduced watermarks into their paper –
directly part of the paper, they were thus impossible to duplicate and were possibly a mark of quality. The idea
of quality marks soon spread all over Europe and is still in use today. Watermark motives have varied from
paper mill to paper mill, and from one epoch to another. Their identification can therefore assist scholars in
dating and locating where a particular piece of paper was manufactured, and thus help in placing the origin of a
piece of graphic art, a book or a document into a specific geographical area and time period.
Unfortunately, we know very little about early paper manufacturing and we therefore often cannot relate early
watermarks to specific paper mills. Although research on watermarks has still a great deal of room for further
development, nevertheless, identical inherent watermarks aid in identifying a series of objects if some of these
objects are dated documents or drawings – information that on occasion verifies or contradicts other indices of a
stylistic, iconographical or technical nature.
If, for example, we possess a drawing by Rubens that cannot be connected to a finished painting, its dating
within his oeuvre is uncertain. The existence of a watermark could prove crucial. It might be possible to date
the drawing within a specific period if an identical watermark can be found in other drawings, as it thus would
have been part of a larger batch of paper from the same manufacturer.
Confronted with the dating of a print – determining whether it was printed in the artist’s own time or much
later, even if at the original place – identifying a watermark is again the single most reliable method of solving
the problem.
Thus, it is a paramount desideratum to identify and digitalize all of the watermarks found in master drawings
and prints. A few projects have been initiated in Europe and the United States. Documenting a few watermarks
in a particular collection does not lead to greater insights with regard to that collection alone, but accumulating
documentation of the same type of watermarks in other collections generates important reference material for
dating as well as other sorts of relationships between drawings, prints, sketches and illuminated books.
The study of paper can only be fruitful if performed on a super-national level, i.e. at the European level. Paper,
together with the artistic creations it carries, is perhaps the most prominent multinational and multicultural
product of Europe and has an immense importance for our common identity. The multinational character of this
project can be clearly seen in the constitution of its consortium, formed by partners at cultural institutions in
Austria, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Romania, and Spain.
Additionally, it is of paramount importance that we realise that most of the items to be digitised in Imperialle
will not survive if they continue to be displayed in exhibitions or museums. The fragility of works on paper, be
it drawings, prints, illuminations, etc., is well established. The only way to share these fragile collections with
the general public is through digital images. Europeana is ideal for making such images available online. Thus,