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Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2024

Filling in the gaps on the map of Medieval and Early Modern European alabaster distribution by interdisciplinary approach

Combler les lacunes de la carte de la distribution de l'albâtre en Europe au Moyen Âge et au début de l'époque moderne grâce à une approche interdisciplinaire

Résumé

Alabaster deposits are well distributed around Europe. Its main deposits, with first documented uses in the 12th-13th century, are in England (East Midlands), Spain (Aragon, Catalonia), Italy (Aosta, Tuscany, Sicily), France (Jura, Lorraine, Provence, Dauphiné), Germany (Harz, Franconia, Hesse), and Ukraine (the Dniester region). Nevertheless, there are many regions of the continent, which do not dispose of local material, causing a necessity of import. While some quarries, e.g. those of the Midlands,11y established themselves as leading centres of exportation of the material since the late Middle Ages, others seem to have more regional or local range. Despite of the recent wave of interdisciplinary and international alabaster research, the map of alabaster deposits and routes connecting them to artistic centres is still incomplete. This is also true for our understanding of the logistics and economics of alabaster spreading, which is very selective. Consequently, in many cases the motivations of commissioners to import a particular sort of alabaster for their artistic undertakings remain unclear. The singularly well studied cases (e.g. the application of alabaster in the mausoleum commissioned by Margaret of Austria in Brou) demonstrate that looking through the lens of material provenance can provide invaluable clues for the interpretation of an artwork. The ongoing DFG-ANR-funded research project Materi-A-Net (https://materi-a-net.uni-koeln.de), building upon a decade of earlier research of the participating institutions, aims at filling in the gaps on the map of alabaster distribution in the pre-modern times through combination of the methods of art history, history, geochemistry and digital data analysis. Its focus lies on the exchange of the material between Germany and France, embedded in the pan-European network of artistic, economic and political connections. A central role in the project is played by the integration of extensive metadata gathered through geochemical analysis, art historical assessment and the study of historical sources into a database making it possible to evaluate the manifold relationships between artworks, actors, quarries, and materials. We will outline this interdisciplinary approach and demonstrate it in more detail for the case studies of the alabaster from Lorraine, Franconia and Ukraine. Next to the presentation of new archival findings and results of isotopic fingerprinting, an attempt to fill through data modelling and visualisation will be demonstrated for discussion. Kloppmann W. et al. (2017) Competing English, Spanish, and French alabaster trade in Europe over five centuries as evidenced by isotope fingerprinting. PNAS, 114, 11856–11860. Lipińska, A. (2014) Alabasterdiplomatie. Material als Medium herrschaftlicher Repräsentation und als Vernetzungsinstrument in Mittel - und Osteuropa des 16. Jahrhunderts, in: M. Bushart, H. Haug, A. Lipińska (eds.), Gemeine Artefakte. Zur gemeinschaftsbildenden Funktion von Kunstwerken in den vormodernen Kulturräumen Ostmitteleuropas, kunsttexte.de/ostblick, Nr. 2: Gemeine Artefakte, Jugie S. et al. (2022) Les albâtres du Jura au XVe et au XVIe siècle : des archives aux carrières, des carrières aux œuvres. L’albâtre, matériau de la sculpture du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance. Huitième colloque d’ARDS sur l’actualité de la recherche sur la sculpture du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance, Paris, Musée du Louvre, 18-19 January 2022.
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Dates et versions

hal-04301490 , version 1 (23-11-2023)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-04301490 , version 1

Citer

Aleksandra Lipińska, Wolfram Kloppmann, Arthur Acker, Tobias Mercer, Jonathan Blumtritt, et al.. Filling in the gaps on the map of Medieval and Early Modern European alabaster distribution by interdisciplinary approach. Matière Matérialité 36e Congrès du Comité International d'Histoire de l'Art - CIHA - 2024, Comité Français d'Histoire de l'Art (CFHA); Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art (INHA); Laboratoire de Recherche Historique Rhône-Alpes (LARHRA), Jun 2024, Lyon, France. ⟨hal-04301490⟩
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