Conference paper abstracts

“Artisanship and Archaeology in the Art-Historical Archive: Silversmithing Practices of Louis XIV’s Royal Goldsmiths,” Histories of Metallurgy and Metal Material Culture, ANU Centre for Art History and Art Theory, 18 November 2022

“Rhoda Wager: Glasgow and Sydney,” Excavating Women’s Histories: Nineteenth to Mid-Twentieth Centuries (panel), Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, Monash University and University of Melbourne [online], 1-3 December 2022

Christina Clarke and Elisa deCourcy, (Re-)Making from the Archive: Thinking about Process and Using Practice as Art Historical Methodologies, Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, University of Sydney [online], 8-11 December 2021

This paper makes a case for extending existing material culture methodologies, increasingly employed by art historians, to an examination of making and its associated artisanal processes. We advocate for applying a material analysis not from the point of an artwork’s completion or encultured use but from its conception, following the decisions which informed its creation. The historian can cultivate a makerly consciousness by diagnosing production methods and technologies; by considering authorship beyond attribution to an embodied sense of craftspersonship, and through identifying how social and geographical constraints influenced decisions around the work’s completion. Our paper will use our very different media of study: mid-nineteenth century photography and late-nineteenth century metalwork to make a case for the productivity of re-orientating object biographies to be attuned to stages of design and construction. We will then conclude our paper by arguing that a knowledge of artistic processes can additionally provide the basis for practice-led research and a practical execution of methods. By stepping into the role of artisan, even in a temporary or limited sense, it is possible to generate new knowledge, not always captured in traditional archival material. This paper will be of interest to anyone exploring new methods in material cultural analysis, scholars working at the intersection of traditional and practice-led research and those looking to productively extract meaning from fragmented or disparate archives.

Christina Clarke and Robert Wellington, “Jean-Benjamin de Laborde’s Choix de chansons: A Digital Critical Edition,” Art Association of Australia and New Zealand Annual Conference, University of Auckland, 3-6 December, 2019.

“The Manufacturing Network of Louis XIV’s Silver Furniture,” Furniture History Society Research Symposium, Wallace Collection, London, 22 November, 2019.

This paper analyses the manufacture of Louis XIV’s famous lost silver furniture and presents new evidence which suggests that immigrant royal artisans played a role in the design and manufacture of the silver pieces, just as they did in the production of other royal manufactures. This challenges previous assumptions that the silver furniture was created exclusively by French goldsmiths.

In December 1689, Louis XIV announced that his vast collection of silver furniture was to be sent to the Royal Mint to be converted into bullion. Within six months, over a thousand pieces, approximately twenty tonnes of silver, had been melted down: tables, stools, chandeliers, guéridons, mirrors, censers, ewers, basins and more. While the furniture was broadly admired and replicated at its zenith, its destruction lead to it acquiring an almost mythical status in the history of French decorative arts. Today still, Louis XIV’s silver furniture is frequently evoked as a symbol of the golden age of his reign.

The manufacture of the furniture has played a central role in its mythology. Despite there being no material evidence, the furniture has been frequently referred to as solid or cast silver. To date, there has been little scholarly attention paid to the manufacture of Louis XIV’s silver furniture either to confirm or refute that it was solid or cast silver. This paper presents evidence from extant French and French émigré metalwork, royal accounts and goldsmiths’ probate inventories which indicate that the pieces were probably produced with a variety of casting and silversmithing techniques. Furthermore, the evidence demonstrates that, contrary to the prevalent narrative that the production of the furniture was solely the project of exclusively French royal goldsmiths working to the designs of Charles Le Brun, first painter to the king, it was in fact a collaborative effort within a larger manufacturing network of both French and immigrant royal and common artisans including sculptors, carpenters, ironmongers and cabinetmakers.

“The Manufacturing Network of Louis XIV’s Silver Furniture,” Furniture History Society Research Symposium, Wallace Collection, London, 22 November, 2019.

Stephanie Aulsebrook and Christina Clarke, “‘Peaceful’ Minoans, ‘Warlike’ Mycenaeans and their Precious Metal Vessels: A Reassessment of a Tired Cliché,” Historical Metallurgy Society Research in Progress Meeting, University of Cambridge, 15 November, 2019.

The interpretative rivalry between Minoan and Mycenaean scholars was a key feature of Aegean archaeology throughout the early and mid-twentieth century, pitting against each other well known names such as Arthur Evans and Alan Wace. This framework, and its attendant stereotypes of peaceful nature-loving Minoans and crude warlike Mycenaeans, has been challenged and dismissed in most spheres of research, except craft. This approach is exemplified by the 1977 publication of The Vapheio Cups and Aegean Gold and Silver Ware by Ellen Davis, who claimed to be able to substantiate the identification of distinct Minoan and Mycenaean crafting traditions. Although this aspect of her research should be understood as a product of its time, instead its attributions are still cited as fact, often with little to no scrutiny of her method. Taking an interdisciplinary approach which combines archaeological and practical metalsmithing knowledge, this paper will re-examine Davis’s data and demonstrate that her methodology relied on a set of assumptions that played down the diversity in metalware manufacture to force the evidence to fit a preconceived notion of two separate crafting traditions. This revision of one of the foundational publications on Aegean metalwork will have implications for how we understand trade between Crete and the Greek Mainland during the Late Bronze Age, the exchange of knowledge between these regions and the movement of people.

Robert Wellington and Christina Clarke, “La fabrication des médailles de Louis XIV,” Les médailles de Louis XIV et leur livre, Monnaie de Paris, Paris, 13-15 June 2019.

Robert Wellington and Christina Clarke, “Image, Music, Text and Metadata: Reflections on the Challenges of the Choix de Chansons,” 47th Annual Conference of the British Society of Eighteenth Century Studies, St Hugh’s College, Oxford, United Kingdom, 3-5 January 2018.

“A new approach to the identification of inter-regional connections in the Eastern Mediterranean during the third millennium BC,” Historical Metallurgy Society 50th Anniversary Conference, Quaker Friends House, London, UK, 14-16 June 2013.

This paper presents a method for studying inter-regional contacts in the Eastern Mediterranean during the Bronze Age. The method identifies evidence of shared metallurgical techniques, in this case those used for the production of metal vessels. Whereas typological similarities between the material cultures of different regions can result from the importation and subsequent imitation of styles, there are some aspects of vessel manufacture which are more likely to reflect temporary or permanent movements of peoples. This is because the complex nature of some techniques would require extended, face-to-face contact between peoples such as would result from the temporary or permanent migration of artisans. Many influences of Egyptian artistic traditions on those of Minoan Crete, for example, result from the import of Egyptian goods, whereas the Minoan influence on Mycenaean traditions is generally regarded to be a result of not only the import of Minoan goods but also of the movement of Minoan artisans to mainland Greece. This paper will describe several metalsmithing techniques which might require extended face-to-face contact to be transmitted between regions and, furthermore, will outline shared technical features of the vessels of different peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Near East which would reflect these types of contact.

“Minoan metal vessel manufacture: Reconstructing techniques and technology with experimental archaeology,” 39th International Symposium on Archaeometry, Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven, Belgium, 29 May 2012.

Metal vessel production flourished in Crete during the Protopalatial, Neopalatial and early Postpalatial periods. Almost all of these vessels were hammered, largely from tin bronzes, and include various pans, cauldrons, hydrias, pitchers, lekanes, lamps and cups. Vessels in precious metals are also extant from Crete, but not in large numbers. The equipment and processes used to manufacture these vessels have not previously been investigated in detail. The aim of this study was to reconstruct the process used to create these vessels. An interdisciplinary approach was taken, combining archaeological research with practical metalsmithing. Initially, a comprehensive study of Minoan metallurgical technology was carried out and some of the vessels examined for evidence of their manufacture. Subsequently, Minoan metallurgical equipment such as hammers, an anvil and a hearth were replicated and used to create Minoan vessel forms including bowls, a hydria and a lekane. The results indicate that the simple tools found at many Minoan metallurgical sites are very effective for vessel making and that unhafted stone hammers, a common Minoan tool, are particularly suitable for making Minoan vessel forms. The process of creating these forms revealed that, unlike those of contemporary cultures in the region, Minoan vessels were formed predominantly by sinking, where the vessel is formed by hammering from the inside, and that only a limited amount of raising, working the vessel from the outside, was carried out. This appears to be a result of technological limitations.

“Minoan metal vessel manufacturing: Techniques and technology,” Historical Metallurgy Society Research in Progress Meeting, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom, 9 November 2011.

Hammered metal vessels in precious metals and tin bronzes were produced on Crete by Minoan smiths largely during the Neopalatial period and the first half of the Postpalatial period, between approximately 1700 and 1340 BC. Some of the more common forms in bronze include hydrias, pans, three-legged cauldrons, basins, lekanai, scoops and lamps. My PhD research in the Gold and Silversmithing Workshop at the Australian National University School of Art has involved reconstructing the technology and techniques used to manufacture these vessels by combining traditional archaeological research with practical metalsmithing carried out in the workshop. Using reconstructed Minoan tools, I have managed to recreate the vessel-making techniques. This research shows that the simple stone-tool types found at several Minoan metallurgical sites are very effective for creating the Minoan vessel forms. In this presentation I will discuss the process used to produce the vessels and demonstrate how these tools work.

“Identification of a raised vessel manufacturing workshop in Minoan Crete,” ArchaeoMetallurgy Conference (Research in Progress Meeting for the Historical Metallurgy Society), University of Bradford, United Kingdom, November 2009.

The identification of the site of a metallurgical workshop in Late Bronze Age (Minoan) layers in Crete is inevitably tied to the process of casting. The remains of casting are relatively easy to identify – metal spill, evidence of a high-temperature hearth, the remains of moulds, crucibles and tuyères – and allow for certainty in the identification of a workshop. Such remains have helped in the identification of workshops at Kommos, Knossos, Mochlos, Gournia and others. However, the range of metallurgical techniques used in Late Minoan Crete is much broader than casting, including forging, raising, repoussé, soldering, granulation, engraving and sheet punching. There should be remains which indicate these other processes, although they may be subtle and easily overlooked. With a focus on the manufacture of raised vessels, this paper aims to identify what equipment may have been used for the process, how a site at which raising occurred may be identified and which known Late Minoan metallurgical sites show evidence of raising having occurred.