{"id":20871,"date":"2017-08-15T16:04:29","date_gmt":"2017-08-15T20:04:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=20871"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:36:39","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:36:39","slug":"life-cycle-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=20871","title":{"rendered":"Alive: The Life Cycle of a Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
The Ackland Art Museum invited several art historians and experts on 16th-century German paintings to view the “Portrait of a Young Lady.” After brief examination and discussion, the museum decided to pursue further study on the picture to determine attribution and its condition under the varnish. Here the painting rests on an easel in Ruth Cox\u2019s studio (right). Cox is a private conservator in Durham who worked with the Ackland on this project.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is a nearly 500-year-old painting worth? \u201cPortrait of a Young Lady\u201d sat in storage at the Ackland Art Museum since its arrival there in 1968 \u2014 until UNC art history professor\u00a0Christoph Brachmann<\/a>\u00a0pulled it from the vaults last year. He immediately sensed the possible importance of this piece, thought to be created in 1522 by\u00a0Barthel Bruyn, a German Renaissance painter.<\/em><\/p>\n

What happens to paintings between the time they leave an artist\u2019s hand and arrive on the wall of a museum? Turns out that, like people, they change throughout their life cycle. They age, become damaged, are painted over \u2014 all of which may change their original essence. Then, once in the hands of the museum, they may undergo all sorts of scientific analysis and conservation efforts to attempt to discover and understand what is left of their original form.<\/p>\n

Evidence suggests that the\u00a0Ackland Art Museum\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0\u201cPortrait of a Young Lady\u201d has led an interesting life. Though the painting was probably commissioned by an aristocratic, 16th<\/sup>-century German family, it traveled in and out of private collections until the Ackland purchased it in 1968. Not only has it been severely damaged and restored multiple times, but recent analysis shows intentional cracking or aging throughout and that the date and family crest are 18th<\/sup>\u2013 or 19th<\/sup>-century additions \u2014 all changes that have taken the painting farther and farther away from its original appearance.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Ph.D. candidate Brianna Guthrie is the fifth recipient of the Joan and Robert Huntley Scholarship, which gives UNC art history graduate students the opportunity to conduct research using collections and resources from both the Ackland Art Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cA painting like this presents the opportunity to bring together art historians, conservators, and scientists interested in the burgeoning field of the technical study of art,\u201d says Peter Nisbet, the Ackland\u2019s deputy director for curatorial affairs. \u201cIt\u2019s proved to be less an important example of Bruyn\u2019s portraiture of nearly 500 years ago, and more a case study in the life of an object, undergoing so many alterations and \u2018improvements\u2019 as to almost become a different picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brianna Guthrie, an art history Ph.D. student at Carolina, agrees. \u201cIt\u2019s an excellent example of how technical analysis can inform traditional scholarship,\u201d she says. \u201cTesting and imaging will help us answer some of the most basic \u2014 and vital \u2014 questions about the painting like who, where, how, and why?\u201d The Ackland\u2019s 2017 Joan and Robert Huntley Scholar, Guthrie participated in the beginning of this extensive research project, helping unravel the mystery behind the \u201cPortrait of a Young Lady\u2019s\u201d life.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Cox and Guthrie examine the portrait using a binocular microscope. The area illuminated by the microscope\u2019s fiber optics shows damaged paint with both the original and restorer\u2019s craquelure \u2014 a network of dense cracking in the paint.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Guthrie is the fifth recipient of the Joan and Robert Huntley Scholarship, which gives UNC art history graduate students the opportunity to conduct research using collections and resources from both the Ackland Art Museum and the North Carolina Museum of Art. Robert Huntley, a professor and physician who helped found the UNC Department of Family Medicine, had a deep appreciation for the arts. He passed in 2002 and, his wife \u2014 herself an art lover and Carolina alumnus \u2014 endowed the scholarship in 2012.<\/p>\n

A conservator like Cox not only uses analytical tools to answer questions about paintings, but also completes the hands-on work of stabilizing physical insecurities, removing old varnishes and restorations and compensating for losses in the original paint film. This cart in her studio stores paints and mediums, tools for leveling fills, tweezers for removing stray bits of cotton and debris, a silk for polishing surfaces, and several varnishes. \u201cAll restoration paints are reversible without damaging the original paint,\u201d Cox explains. The possible Bruyn, she points out, has paint from previous restoration that was not applied following modern ethics in conservation. If the Ackland decides to conserve it, layers of old varnish and retouching will be removed, and losses filled and inpainted.<\/p>\n

The opportunity to see the scientific side of history and preservation has deepened Guthrie\u2019s appreciation for the material nature of art \u2014 so much so that she\u2019s attending the American Chemical Society\u2019s national meeting later this year to learn about analytic chemistry in the context of cultural heritage. \u201cA persistent and imaginative researcher, Brianna fully immersed herself in scientific conversations and studies in the lab \u2014 activities outside her normal skill set,\u201d Nisbet says. \u201cThat will make her a much better art historian in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Story and photos by Alyssa LaFaro, Endeavors magazine<\/a>. See the full photo essay<\/a> for more photos and information.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is a nearly 500-year-old painting worth? \u201cPortrait of a Young Lady\u201d sat in storage at the Ackland Art Museum since its arrival there in 1968 \u2014 until UNC art history professor Christoph Brachmann pulled it from the vaults last year. He immediately sensed the possible importance of this piece, thought to be created in 1522 by Barthel Bruyn, a German Renaissance painter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":20873,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,21],"tags":[1388,1454,24,36,37,38,39,40],"class_list":["post-20871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fine-arts-humanities","category-news","tag-ackland-art-museum","tag-art-history","tag-carolina","tag-unc","tag-unc-arts-and-sciences","tag-unc-college-of-arts-and-sciences","tag-unc-chapel-hill","tag-university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48200,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20871\/revisions\/48200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}