Forum

25Aug10

Conservation Studies at the University of Oslo hosted a forum around the theme of medieval and late-medieval painting and polychrome sculpture at the Historical Museum, University of Oslo, 26–27 November 2010. Speakers included conservators, conservation scientists and historians. Papers and discussion points explored issues related to the interpretation and conservation of northern-European liturgical furniture, circa 1100 to 1600.

Background
The University of Oslo owns a rich collection of altar frontals and polychrome objects. Over the past 30 years, scholarship has focused on medieval painting techniques identified in Norwegian frontals and sculptures. A major study of 31 frontals dating from 1250 to 1350 was completed in 2006 and the mapping of materials in surviving sculptures that date between 1100 and 1350 is in progress. These projects have been especially meaningful because those works that pre-date the 1340s are, with few exceptions, the products of Norwegian workshops.

Platform for new research
The paintings and sculpture in the Oslo collection that are thought to date after the first wave of Bubonic plague and through the Reformation (c. 1350–1600) are a far less homogenous group. The majority is thought to have been imported to Norway from the Low Countries and north German/Baltic regions, but these objects have been explored far less extensively than those which pre-date 1350. Therefore, many questions remain about their origins, circumstances of production and materials, as well as their current state of preservation.

This part of the collection will be the focus of a new research project based in Conservation Studies at UiO, led by Noëlle Streeton in collaboration with Kaja Kollandsrud and the Museum of Cultural History. This forum is intended to aid the development of a research platform for the long-term study of this late-medieval collection.

Programme

Administration and point of contact

Please direct questions that are not addressed in the webpages to Hildegunn Gullåsen at hildegunn.gullasen@iakh.uio.no.

Organisers
Noëlle Streeton, Associate Professor, Conservation Studies, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History, UiO, n.l.w.streeton@iakh.uio.no.

Kaja Kollandsrud, Senior Conservator, Museum of Cultural History, UiO, kaja.kollandsrud@khm.uio.no.

Hildegunn Gullåsen, Research Assistant, Conservation Studies, Institute of Archaeology, Conservation and History, UiO, hildegunn.gullasen@iakh.uio.no. Telephone: +47 22 85 93 23

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