Climate tolerance of paintings and historic black woollens quality standards
24 July 2024
The projects were funded in the call ‘An Integrated Approach to the Scientific Study and Conservation of Art – Tracing change (NICAS)’. Its aim is to strive for a full understanding of the creation processes of objects and their original appearance, and of the processes that take place in the objects over time and through which they change. Hermans and Van Bommel both perform their research in joint positions at the faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Science (Van ‘t Hoff Institute for Molecular Sciences). Together, they will receive almost one million euros.
The two awarded projects are:
Like all of us, museums are faced with the need to reduce energy consumption. Widening indoor climate tolerances would have a big impact, but scientific support to do so safely is currently lacking. The PREPARE project addresses this urgent issue by studying oil paintings in Dutch historic interiors with little climate-control, and by designing model systems that are very sensitive to climate fluctuations. This combined approach allows finding the root cause of climate-induced mechanical failure in paintings. Moreover, the project will yield low-tech monitoring protocols for chemical early-warning sign detection and a risk classification of paint materials and climate conditions.
(Re)discovering the development and changes of black woollens quality standards in the 18th-century Leiden's staalmeesters sample books
Museum De Lakenhal holds a unique collection of sample books (1690-1791), with hundreds of black wool samples produced in Leiden. The city followed strict regulations and used several grades to control the quality of its black woollens, which were often meant for export. Yet, the samples for each quality grade vary considerably, suggesting that this control was not as standardised as initially assumed. By studying these books and their wool samples, this project aims to (re-)discover the development and changes of 18th-century Leiden quality-control standards, and establish the city’s role in the globalisation of trade in textiles and textile materials.