5 CONSERVATION BY DESIGN LIMITED

Nicholas Hadgraft Scholarship
Application Form 2016 /
Please send the completed and signed application form, to:
Pauline Hutchinson
Conservation by Design Ltd
2 Wolseley Road
Kempston
Bedford
BEDS
MK42 7AD
E-mail : or Cheryl Porter
By post or e-mail and to arrive not later than 6th April 2016 . The successful applicant will be notified by end April 2016.
Please note that the main criteria will be for applicants with bookbinding or book conservation skills. This includes both students and practicing conservators. Priority will be given to applicants with no other form of funding.
It is important to include photographs or CD-Rom of your work and, if you would like to include references please feel welcome to do so.
The scholarship will be an award of £1500 towards the cost of attending the Montefiascone Book Conservation Summer School held each year in the medieval hill town of Montefiascone.
Located between Rome and Siena and situated next to lake Bolsena and close to the beautiful Etruscan City of Orvieto.
There are four separate courses given by different tutors and the scholarship can be used towards the cost of attending one or all four weeks.
Applicant Details (please type or PRINT clearly )

Name: Title: Ms/ Mrs/ Mr
Address:
Email:
Telephone:
·  Day:
·  Evening:
·  Mobile:
·  What is your relevant experience?
·  What is your occupation?
·  How did you hear about the Nicholas Hadgraft Scholarship Trust
·  Describe how you hope to benefit from the scholarship
(Please continue on a separate sheet of paper if necessary)
Scholarship Details
·  Please underline which course or courses you wish to attend:

Week 1: 25-29th July

Re-creating the Medieval Palette by Cheryl Porter

Week 2: 1-5th August
The Unicorn Binder by Jim Bloxan and Shaun Thompsom
Week 3: 8-12th August
An al-Andalusian Islamic Binding by Ana Beni, Kristine Rose (and Alison Ohta)
Week 4: 15-19 August
Carolingian Binding by Michael Burke
Qualifications
(List all relevant qualifications gained)
Career history (including students)
Current Employment (or College)
·  Name and address of employer (or College).
·  When did you (either):
Start working for your present employer.
Or
Start your course
·  Describe your work or course subject .
Previous Employment (or college)
·  Name and address of employer (or college):
·  How long were you employed (or training):
·  Describe your work or course subject:
·  Have you tried to obtain funds from elsewhere and if so from whom and did they grant you any funds?
·  Have you attended the Montefiascone Book Conservation Summer School before? Yes/No
·  If Yes – when ?
Please tell us how you heard about the scholarship:
Magazine Y/N Please specify
Emailer from CXD Y/N
Colleague/Friend Y/N
Course Tutor Y/N
Other Y/N Please specify
Should I be awarded the Nicholas Hadgraft Scholarship, I agree to:
·  Co-operate with any Conservation By Design press publicity about my award with a view to encouraging others to apply for scholarships. This may include the use of relevant photographs which may be published.
Signature Date

Conservation By Design Limited is committed to respecting the personal data you supply to us. The information we collect will be relevant to the purposes for which they are to be used, and we will do our utmost to ensure that such data will be accurate, complete and kept up to date. Whenever personal data is obtained from you, you will have access to information as to how that data will be used.

Pages 6 -10 BACKGROUND DETAIL ONLY - Please do not return with your application

Conservation By Design Limited

“Nicholas Hadgraft Scholarship 2016

In 2005 Stuart Welch the owner of Conservation By Design Limited in remembrance of his dear friend Dr Nicholas Hadgraft, who died on July the 4th 2004, decided to offer the annual Conservation By Design ‘Nicholas Hadgraft Scholarship’

The scholarship is an award of £1500 towards the cost of attending the Montefiascone Book Conservation Summer School founded by Cheryl Porter. Held each year in the medieval hill town of Montefiascone that is located between Rome and Siena. Montefiascone is situated next to lake Bolsena and close to the beautiful Etruscan City of Orvieto.

There are four separate courses of one-week duration given by different tutors and the scholarship can be used towards the cost of attending one or all four weeks.

Nicholas was a regular tutor at Montefiascone from its beginnings and took great pleasure imparting his knowledge and sharing his love of books and bookbinding with like-minded individuals.

The courses coincide with the towns wine festival that offers a wonderful atmosphere for social interaction alongside study and gaining new skills. It is hoped that this scholarship will be a fitting tribute and allow the worthy recipient to share what Nicolas enjoyed so much about Montefiascone.

MONTEFIASCONE SUMMER 2016

Montefiascone is a small medieval walled city about 100 k (80 miles) north of Rome, on Lake Bolsena. Since 1988, conservators and others interested in books and their history have come together to work, to learn and to enjoy this special place. Participants come to enjoy the medieval architecture, friendly people, a clean accessible lake, books and scholarship. The Montefiascone Project is a non-profit making organisation, set up to fund the restoration of the Library of the Seminario Barbarigo in Montefiascone.

COURSES FOR SUMMER 2016:

25-29th July Re-creating the Medieval Palette

This class will study the colours (made from rocks, minerals, metals, insects and plants) that were processed to produce the colours used by artists throughout the medieval era. The focuswill mostly (though not exclusively) be on manuscript art -Islamic and European- and participants will re-create the colours using original recipes. Illustrated lectures willaddress the history, geography, chemistry, iconography andconservation issues. Practical making and painting sessions will follow these lectures. No previous experience is necessary.

Course tutor: Cheryl Porter

1-5th August The Unicorn Binder

This course will focus on the work of the Unicorn Binder, so named because of his use of a distinctive finishing tool cut to the design of a small woodland unicorn. He is known to have bound at least seventy volumes between 1484 and 1505, of which eighteen are in Cambridge libraries. His work can be securely placed in late fifteenth-century Cambridge, where several bindery workshops produced bindings of blind-tooled leather over wooden boards, with clasps to hold the volume closed. The rich, warm, mahogany colour of the leather, seen on Cambridge bindings, sets them apart from the other main fifteen-century bookbinding centres of London and Oxford. The tutors have examined extensively all eighteen Unicorn bindings in Cambridge libraries and have looked at more from other collections in the UK. The Unicorn Binder successfully exploits the high quality materials at his disposal, both structurally and aesthetically, to produce some of the finest work seen in Cambridge bindings.

The tutors will enable the course participants to recreate a binding based on the work of the Unicorn Binder. Processes will include sewing the text-block, sewing endbands, shaping and attaching the boards and covering with leather. The covered books will be blind tooled with replica finishing tools based on the Unicorn Binder's designs and have brass fittings and fixtures applied. Complementing the practical aspect of the course the tutors will seek to set the binding into context. The course will give an over-view of late English fifteenth-century structures and examine previous influences on their evolution and how they, in turn, influenced later bindings.

Some knowledge and experience of bookbinding or book history would be useful, but is not essential. All materials will be supplied at a nominal cost. Participants will need to bring basic bookbinding tools. The tutors will contact prospective students well in advance of the class with suggested readings and a list of recommended tools.

Course tutors: Jim Bloxan and Shaun Thompson

8-12th August An al-Andalusian Islamic Binding

From the 8th to the 15th century, the Iberian Peninsula was a cosmopolitan society governed by Muslims, where Christians, Jews and Muslims lived together. The free exchange and influences between these cultures are reflected in the specific characteristics of the Andalusian book structure.

In 1492 the kingdom of Granada surrendered to the Catholic monarchs and the period of Islamic rule in Spain came to an end. The majority of books from the large libraries were burnt and destroyed, but a small number of manuscripts were hidden or moved to safer locations.

The marriage of cultures exemplified by the Andalusian binding typology can be found in a number of the manuscripts that survive. In this course, participants will make an accurate model of an exquisite example of the Andalusian binding structure, found recently in the village of Hornachos in the southwest of Spain. Produced at the end of the 15th or beginning of the 16th century, this tiny devotional prayer manuscript contains a collection of prayers and chapters from the Qur’an along with a number of illustrations. It is likely it was considered to have talismanic properties, providing protection to those who carried it. Now held in the Extremadura Library, this manuscript demonstrates the significant variations made to sewing, endbands, treatment of the spine, and the covering process characteristic of the Andalusian structure. It also bears witness to the Coptic heritage of Islamic binding traditions, and provides further evidence that the Islamic binding is not a casebinding structure.

The course will be complemented by illustrated presentations, and a lecture by Dr Alison Ohta, Director of the Royal Asiatic Society in London.

All materials will be provided though basic bookbinding tools will be needed. Some knowledge of historic bookbinding would be helpful, but is not essential.

Course tutors: Ana Beni, Kristine Rose (and Alison Ohta)

15-19 August Carolingian Binding

The Carolingian binding style was used in western Europe from the seventh century and is often characterized by the paths of the slips of the sewing supports as they lace into the wooden boards. This course will focus on the late Carolingian binding structure of a manuscript held at the Canterbury Cathedral Library Archives, written and bound in Canterbury in the late eleventh century. Participants will recreate a model of the book in order to study and understand the distinctive features of a Carolingian binding, the historical influences upon it, and the ways that it differed from the structure of the Romanesque bindings that followed it. The Canterbury binding features wooden boards of quarter-sawn oak, sewing supports of alum tawed leather, sewn endbands and tab ends, and a covering of alum tawed leather.

All materials can be supplied at nominal cost. Participants will need to bring basic bookbinding tools. Some knowledge and experience of bookbinding or book history would be useful.

Course tutor: Michael Burke

BIOGRAPHIES

Cheryl Porter has been Director of the Montefiascone Project since its inception in 1988. After graduating from Camberwell College (University of the Arts, London) she worked at University College London Paintings Analysis Unit, analysing the use of pigments in paintings and manuscripts. She was Manager of Conservation and Preservation at the Dar al-Kutub (National Library and Archives of Egypt) and Thesaurus Islamicus Foundation 2007-2010 and is currently a consultant for a number of institutions with book, papyrus and manuscript collections. She has published many articles concerning colour in manuscripts and haslectured in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia and throughout Europe.

Jim Bloxam, Head of Conservation, Cambridge University Library, UK. Jim is an Accredited Conservator of the Institute of Conservation. His particular research interests lie mainly in the history of books; their structural qualities and their cultural context. He has taught historical book structures in the UK, Europe and the US, focusing mainly on Romanesque and Gothic book structures.

Shaun Thompson, Collection Care Manager, Cambridge University Library, UK. Shaun has worked at Cambridge University Library since 2003 and during this time he has taken the opportunity to examine and recreate some of the medieval bindings within the library. He has sought to share his knowledge and skills by teaching a number of practical workshops in the UK. Shaun taught courses in 2013 and 2014 at Montefiascone and is looking forward to returning to share his ever-widening knowledge and experience.

Ana Beny has been a freelance conservator since 1984. She has worked for many prestigious Spanish institutions and treated diverse library items, but has always been dedicated to historical bookbinding. Ana has worked on Islamic manuscripts from the Dar al-Kutub in Cairo, the Royal History Academy, Islamic Library of the Spanish Agency of Cooperation, Extremadura’s Library, and several private collections in Spain. She has taught and lectured internationally, and now divides her time between Madrid and Cairo, where she works closely with the conservators at Dar al-Kutub.

Kristine Rose Beers is Senior Conservator at the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin and an accredited member of the Institute of Conservation. Her research interests include the conservation of Islamic manuscript material, early binding structures, and the use of pigments and dyes in medieval manuscripts. Before moving to Ireland, Kristine worked at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge as Assistant Keeper (Conservator of Manuscripts and Printed Books); at the Chester Beatty Library with a particular focus on the Turkish manuscript collection; and at the Cambridge University Library. She graduated from the Conservation programme at Camberwell College of Arts in 2002 and is a member of The Islamic Manuscript Association.

Ana and Kristine have been working together on the importance of the Andalucían binding structure and its applications in contemporary manuscript conservation for a number of years.

Alison Ohta is currently Director of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. She completed her PhD thesis at SOAS on Mamluk bindings and has published and lectured extensively on the subject.

Michael Burke studied bookbinding with Dominic Riley and paper conservation with Karen Zukor. Michael lives in the Lake District, where he teaches bookbinding. In recent years he has taught and lectured at Society of Bookbinders conferences and seminars, and at Guild of Bookworkers meetings in the USA as well as teaching tours in Australia, New Zealand, and Brazil. Michael researches the structures of ancient and medieval bindings. He has a Masters degree in the History of the Book from the University of London.

Costs: £445 UKP per week for all tuition (which is in English)

Pages 6 -10 BACKGROUND DETAIL ONLY - Please do not return with your application