Unveiling the underprintings of a late-fifteenth-early-sixteenth century illuminated French incunabulum by infrared reflectography

Abstract

For the first time, IR reflectography was used for analysing the production technique of incunabula, unveiling impressive results concerning the identification of underprintings and the relation with its coloured illuminated representations. In this work, the procedures followed for producing a late-fifteenth-earlysixteenth century incunabulum produced in the Parisian workshop of Germain Hardouyn held by the Biblioteca Pública de Évora (Inc.438) were characterized by IR reflectography. Unexpected features concerning the creative process of the hand-coloured procedures were achieved, reflecting an illuminator strongly influenced by the devotions that were in fashion at the time, unlike the engraving plates used on the incunabulum, whose representations faithfully followed the references of the Holy Scriptures. For the evaluation of the originality of the painted surfaces, a representative painted illustration-the Adoration of the Magi, f.11-was full characterized using a microscopic and spectroscopic approach (OM, SEM-EDS, Raman microscopy,-FTIR). Three representative coloured-paints (white, blue and gilding) of the painted illustrations from the Adoration of the Magi (f.11), the Pietà (f.47v) and the Pentecost (f.65v) were characterized and compared to infer on the contemporaneity of these painted illustrations.

Image-based metric heritage modeling in the near-infrared spectrum

“…In the context of many heritage analyses, and especially for the study of polychromatic artworks and the investigation of surface or undersurface deterioration of historical artifacts, the use of visible-spectrum textures is often not adequate. Near-infrared imaging has often been explored towards this direction [13,14], with sensors that employ complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) based on InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide, 750-1700 nm) or PtSi (platinum silicide, 750-5000 nm) detectors, developed in the 1990s [15][16][17].…”

Image-based metric heritage modeling in the near-infrared spectrum

“…In the context of many heritage analyses, and especially for the study of polychromatic artworks or the investigation of surface or undersurface deterioration of historical artefacts, the use of visiblespectrum textures is often not adequate. Near-infrared imaging has often been explored towards this direction [18,19], with sensors employing complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOS) based on InGaAs (indium gallium arsenide, 750-1700 nm) or PtSi (platinum silicide, 750-5000 nm) detectors, developed in the 1990s [20][21][22], and multispectral (up to 14 narrow spectral bands) single-point scanning systems, which significantly reduce the effects of optical and geometrical non-uniformities regarding multi-detectors arrays [23,24].…”

Image processing methods integrated to imaging and material characterisation for the study of incunabula illustrations: an innovative multi-analytical approach on a case-study

“…The visuals from the two stages of the creative processengraving and illumination -were sometimes not fully comparable. A case is an incunabulum held by the Biblioteca Pública de Évora, the Inc.438, from which a comparison between the underprintings and the illuminations has been presented for the first time (Miguel et al 2019). Its maker was the printer-bookseller Germain Hardouyn, that was especially prolific in the exclusive edition and creation of printed Hours (Winn 2009).…”

“…Its maker was the printer-bookseller Germain Hardouyn, that was especially prolific in the exclusive edition and creation of printed Hours (Winn 2009). According to Miguel et al (2019), there were three different sizes, corresponding to different formats for the representations. In this case, the chosen case-studies were Adoration of the Magi (acquired painted area of 60 x 84 mm), Pietá (acquired painted area of 31 x 52 mm) and Pentecost (acquired painted area of 34 x 47 mm).…”

“…In addition to this study, previous cases of technical examination on materials and techniques applied to illuminated manuscripts are abundant, some of which concern specifically French Books of Hours (Melo et al 2014;Araujo et al 2015). Unfortunately, Hours on the printed format did not enjoy comparable interest to date (Miguel et al 2019). In these cases, the applied modus operandi involved multi-analytical approaches consisting of optical, elemental, spectroscopic and chemometric techniques (Burgio et al 1997;Burgio et al 2010;Miguel et al 2008;Miguel et al 2012;Pessanha et al 2012;Manso et al 2013).…”