Pisa, 13rd March 2011
I allow the reading of the following text in the course of the Printroom Online Conference, to be performed at the same time with my ppt presentation file “Watermark Portal – An Online Database for Watermarks and Paper Used for Prints and Drawings”, in respect of the statement’s exposition and of the formal order of the presentation’s slides.
Arianna Meucci
Lecture : Watermark Portal – An Online Database for Watermarks and Paper Used for Prints and Drawings.
(Slide 1: //.)
Slide 2 : The Watermark Database project revolves around paper.
The significance of paper derives from being the ubiquitous physical carrier for information exchange until the present times. As such, thestudy of paper is used on the one hand to identify undated paper documents or expertisedocuments of questioned authenticity. On the other hand, paper studies have also a historicaldimensionand an economic aspect (for art dealers the ability to correctly authenticate, date and locate paper documents is the fundamental basis on which their business relies).
Knowledge of this kind ispartly obtained from the physical characteristics of paper, a source of ‘hidden information’ asopposed to the visible inscription on a paper object. Watermarks are an example for such hidden information. They constitute also the mostprominent characteristics examined by historians as well as reproduced and documented incatalogues. But a great amount of such and similar paper data with a broad geographical andtemporal spread is necessary in order to create a reliable information source.
Slide3: From September 2006 to February 2009 the European Commission, through the Econtentplus Program, co-founded the project Bernstein – The Memory of Paper. Bernstein is a consortium thatproduces a digital infrastructure for the expertise and history of paper based on images visualizing the paper's structure.
Slide 4: Bernstein Consortium brings together all the major European actors in the field of digital historical paper expertise (hence the partner choices) coming from both humanities and computer sciences. The project consortium consists of nine partners from six countries, among which the largest collections of paper and watermarks.
Slide 5: The goal of project Bernstein was the creation of a European integrated digital environmentfor paper history and expertise. Bernstein connects now all European watermark databasesaccessible through the Internet at the onset of the project.
It offers a comprehensive and unrivalledinformation source about paper.
A substantialfurther project goal was the dissemination of the achieved results to a broad audience in theform of a series of exhibitions, a book about paper history and watermarks and an easilyinstallable software package for paper cataloguing.
Slide 6: The four databases connected into Bernstein integrated workspace are:
Piccard Online, wherethe Archive of the State of Baden-Württemberg provides the entire “Piccard” repertory of watermark tracings.
Watermarks in Incunabula printed in the Low Countries, in which the Koninklijke Bibliotheek documents by electron radiography and rubbing paper types of all incunabula printed in the Low Countries.
Watermarks of the Middle Ages, created by the AustrianAcademy of Sciencesto record by X-rays Austrian manuscripts of the late Middle Ages.
Database of Watermarks and Papers Used for Prints and Drawings,a special contribution of the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence, that consists in outstanding reproductions of art drawings and prints of such key figures of European culture as Leonardo da Vinci and Rembrandt.
Slide 7: The integrated workspace( ) provides the digital environment necessary for the integration of resources. It is an Internet application interfaced in six languages (English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish) that gives access to all the Bernstein resources, of which the main components arethe catalogue, the atlas, the bibliography, the expertise, and the toolkit.
Slide 8: The Catalogueallows search in and data retrieval from the various online databases. The search can be formulated in six languages and in three ways:
simple search, with a chosen term in the search field,
advanced search, where the user can combine several search fields,
and browse motif, to navigate in the tree structure of the systematic by names or by icons.
Slide 9: So, here we are at the Watermark Database created by the Dutch University Institute for Art History in Florence.
Slide 10: NIKI’s Watermark Database is an online international database, which provides a new study subsidy for the art historians.
It is the first database on watermarks and papers created with the specific aim at giving a support on dating, authenticating and locating the provenance of the anonymous graphics and of uncertain attribution.
Slide 11: The Watermark Database was created to collect the results of a project, that started under the guidance of the Director Prof. Bert Meijer in 2001.
The project was focused on watermarks and papersused for artistic purposes from XV to XIX century.
I’ve been part of this project under the supervision of project manager Dr. Georg Dietz from 2005 to 2010.
My assignment referred to: digitalization and cataloguing,assistant to the database graphic interface,expertise on demand (mostly for private collectors)
By then, more than 2000 watermarks have been x-rayed and digitalized from several international institutes and more than 1500 of those watermarks come from prints.
Slide 12: All the information in the watermark database are in English. Data accessibility can be asguest, a user allowed only to search and read the catalogue’s cards, oras registered user, allowed to enter new data.Here the link to NIKI’s website.
Slide 13: The search can be formulated in two ways:
in simple search or
advanced search, combining several search fields.
Slide 14: The Watermark Database’s structure is organized in three areas:
Along the vertical gray bar a tree-menu visualize the four areas in which the card is articulated, and it allows to move freely through the card fields;
in the central white space are displayed the data collected in fields through which it is possible to move with the next/back button;
along the horizontal gray bar it is possible to navigate through the database.
Every catalogue card is organized in four areas: in the source area there can be found information about artist, technique, date, and provenience of the graphic oeuvre.
Slide 15: In thepaper area are displayed data related paper provenience, date and papermaker.
In the watermark area there can be found data related dimensions, bibliography and identical examples collected in the database.
In the Image Area all the images related paper and watermark are shown. With a mouse-click on the image a new pop up window will be opened to display the figure. It is possible to zoom in on it up till 200%.
A print version of the card it is also offered in a pdf file.
Slide 16: The peculiar feature of the database is to be an open source : users can register themselves and participate at the growing of the archive, entering new data.
The Permalinkkey command creates a direct link from the watermark catalogue’s card to the online catalogue’s card (if existing) of the print/drawing in which the watermark has been found.
InAdditional Notes field the registered users can participate to forums and share information.
Slide 17: Some study cases.
Slide 18: The III state of the Death of the Virgin in the HermitageMuseum’s collection, the plate for which is signed and dated 1639, exists in early impressions on papers with several different watermarks. The HermitageMuseum’s impression bears a Strasbourg Bend watermark, which is the same watermark found on all impressions of The Three Crosses on which watermarks are visible, both before and after the major change to the fourth state of the plate.
This indicates that Rembrandt made the HermitageMuseum’s impression of Death of the Virgin around the same time using the same ream of paper that he used for the 1653 printings of The Three Crosses.
Slide 19: All the watermarks known of III to V state of The Three Crosses print are Strasbourg Bend, that as to say Rembrandt printed the three states on the same paper (of 1653).
When Rembrandt made another print of nearly identical size, Ecce Homo, in 1655, he did not use the same paper of the three states of The Three Crosses, suggesting that he had run out of that paper by then.
This provides evidence that the changes to the IV state of The Three Crosses, usually dated 1660-61, would have had to come prior to the printing of the Ecce Homo (which is signed and dated 1655 in the VII state, but all the IV to VII state known etchings are printed on the same paper with a Strasbourg Lily as watermark).
For years scholars had assumed that the IV state was made quite later, after Rembrandt had time to thoroughly rethink his subject, due to details connected to the 1661’s painting The Oath of the Batavians,now in Nationalmuseum, Stockholm.
Eric Hinterding’s research on the watermarks found on Rembrandt’s prints, however, strongly suggests otherwise : the dating of the IV state of The Three Crosses would be anticipate to earlier than 1655, at about 1653-1654.
Slide 20: About the circle of artists among Fra Bartolomeo, watermarks can provide evidence of :
Coherent dating of drawings not directly connected to dated panels;
Common paper supplies, thus common pictorial media;
Tentative attribution when a watermark appears to be totally extraneous to the group found on the circle’s contemporary drawings;
Watermarks of papers circulating in Florence at that time, surely created by a nearby manufacture.
Slide 21: Watermarks help recollecting the engraved blocks roaming (thus the print history and fame) from the artist’s first edition to the last one, especially when posthumous.
Watermarks can give evidence of the cultural movement of a city, especially when a foreign oeuvre reveals to have been edited on a local manufactured paper.
Slide 22: In conclusion
Slide 23: The project is expected to have a considerable impact on art and paper studies, by facilitating and bringing innovation in the field and broadening and synergising the area.
Slide 24: Curators who will enter new data taken from their own graphic collection in the NIKI’s Watermark Database, will give to their own collection a positive feedback, because:
they will offer a new professional tool of research to the users of their catalogue;
there will be presented more detailed data concerning every collection’s piece;
thank to the Permalink key command, the world wide visibility of the collection’s catalogue will be optimized;
through NIKI’s WD, the graphic collection’s catalogue will be in connection with other important international graphic collections’ catalogues;
the collection’s catalogue will be powered by a synergizing connection with NIKI’s WD and Bernstein online resources.
Please consider that for any doubt or question concerning NIKI’s WD registration, data input, watermarks’ expertise or cataloguing,
I will be at your disposal.
Slide 25: Thank you for listening.