reliefapplications and decoration techniques in the nineteenth century placed in a broader context

Abstract part 2

This research focuses on the gilded nineteenth century relief applications used by the workshop of Van Uytvanck, workshop Bressers and the workshop Blanchaert. Objects that have been preserved uptil now were visited in situ to document their size, patterns, damage and their appearance. In addition, an attempt was made to deduce possible manufacturing processes and filling masses of this type of relief on the basis of external appearance. In order to be able to offer a more complete answer to this, a source study was started into the mentioned manufacturing methods and techniques concerning the production of reliefs and relief decorations from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century in Europe. The subsequent reconstruction of old examples was only carried out to gain a broader insight into old manufacturing processes, the use or non-use of tin foil or moulds, the material of the moulds and the consistency and composition of their fill masses. With the data collected and experience gained from reconstructions of old techniques, a possible hypothesis was drawn up about the nineteenth-century method of manufacturing gilded relief applications and the hypothetical method of manufacture was tested against practice through reconstructions of neo-gothic reliefs. ( for pictures see below this page)

tabels with information made during research

locations visited in the last few years

hypothetical layer build-up of a nineteenth century relief application

from bottom to the top: 1 wood (wooden panels of the compartments of the altarpiece) 2 size layer (probably animal glue) 3 white ground (probably chalk and glue) 4 blue paint layer 5 yellow layer (probably mordant) 6 relief application (presumably metal foil and fill mass (probably wax-based)) 7 the same yellow layer (probably mordant) 8 gold (gold leaf)

relief applications (gaufruren )of the nineteenth century

The research started in 2014 when I started to examine the statue of Saint-Joseph and Saint-Elisabeth of Hungary. I also restored the sculptures and took digital microscope pictures to study the build up of the decoration techniques that were used on the sculptures and the altarpiece. I first placed them in context by going back to the roots.

I looked through the archival documents that remained of the mentioned workshops above of the nineteenth century. A part of the archive of Van Uytvanck is lost (through fire) or couldn't be conserved. In the Bulletin des métiers d'art are also works made by Van Uytvanck mentioned. The saint Juliana sculpture made by Van Uytvanck stands in de Saint-Juliana chapel in Sint-Joost-ten-Node. He also made two other sculptures for this place. From the other workshop is more preserved like drawings, stencils, moulds, plasters, drawings for wall paintings, painted canvas, polychromed artifacts,.. These two statues belong to Benoît Van Uytvanck. Benoît Van Uytvanck was a student of the workshIop Bressers-Blanchaert. The workshop Bressers-Blanchaert are two independent workshops that got assignment's and money separate from each other. These two sculptures and the Sint-Franciscus altarpiece are sort of related to each other since they were made for the paters conventuelen chapel in Leuven. The chapel was designed by Joris Helleputte.

The altarpiece presents us the life of Saint Franciscus in 2D en 3D. The two dimension parts are painted. The three dimensional parts are sculpted and polychromed. The altarpiece is dated 1889. The altarpiece stood on top of a stone altar made by Van Uytvanck. The two parts of the altarpiece stood alongside the tabernacle in the centre. Jan de Visscher produced also objects for this chapel like two side altars. The polychromy on these two sculptures is very similar to the polychromed sculptures produced by his learning masters. The polychromy differs also a bit from the other work of Van Uytvanck. Van Uytvanck has also worked with others to polychrome the statues. The statue of Sint-Joseph was dated inside the sculpture. The statue of Elisabeth of Hungary was signed and dated on her right shoulder on the back by Benoît Van Uytvanck himself.

The statue is Saint-Joseph is build up from different wood blocks glued and nailed to each other. Inside the sculpture there are traces visible that were made by a chisel. You can look inside the sculpture until the neck. You can't look at the build up of the Christus child from the inside of the sculpture. The nails are visible on some places on the outside. The edges are cracked around the nail that was covered with a putty and a paint layer on top. The statue of Saint-Elisabeth is also build up in different wood blocks that were also glued and nailed together. The bottom of the sculpture of Saint Elisabeth contains more wood blocks set together so that you can't look as far inside the sculpture as was possible by Saint-Joseph. The altarpiece is in the corners fixated with a pin and hole connection with wooden dowels in it.

I examined the archives and looked for any clues for materials (like pigments, binders and so on), techniques, patterns or other works made by them. The found pigments were turned in a visual colour scale. I structured the information to put it in to practice and make reconstructions of them not only two dimensional but also threedimensional to get a more visual inside how they worked and how it turned out when you turned it into practice. I started for these reconstructions by making colour scales by the objects I studied. Then I compared them with the material mentioned in the archive. Furthermore I got a better look on the decoration on the walls of the compartment's of the altarpiece. They were a kind of relief applications of the nineteenth century. I wondered how they were manufactured, if they were used by both workshops, if there were any other other patterns or sizes and in what scale they were common in the works made by them. I also took a look at ways to create relief not only in the polychromy field but also at other practicing fields. I also put them into practice to get more insight in the materials and techniques used to create them and in what context they were made. I also visited examples in other countries to look at them in situ and draw my conclusions. This helped me to form a hypothese for the manufacture of the relief applications and fill mass. Next to this I also looked over Belgium and tried to visit the locations mentioned in the archive to get an overview of the size, the patterns, the damage, on what objects they were applied and so on. In the search hunt of relief applications and techniques used by this workshops, a lot of the locations are destined with another purpose nowadays. The churches or chapels are now exhibition rooms,hotels,cafés,restaurants, elderly homes, café, shops (for example bikes) or taken over by another religious group.

part 1

This research focuses on neo-gothic materials and techniques in polychromy from the nineteenth century. Two neo-gothic images, Saint Elisabeth (1886, Benoît Van Uytvanck) and Saint Joseph (1887, Benoît Van Uytvanck) and a neo-gothic Saint Francis retable (1889, Atelier Bressers-Blanchaert). These three objects are included in the oeuvre catalog Joris Helleputte and the neo-gothic studios. The fact that Leuven-based Benoît Van Uytvanck (1857-1927), the maker of the two statues, was a pupil of Ghent sculptor Leopold (1832-1913) and art carpenter Leonard (1834-1905) Blanchaert, offered an interesting fact in view of further study. The three objects also originate from the same location, namely the former chapel of the Friars Minor in Leuven, located at Tiensestraat 78. In addition to a practical study of the objects, the archives of both studios were thoroughly investigated. The Benoît Van Uytvanck archive is located in Museum M Leuven and consists of four archive boxes. In addition to a few black-and-white photos of works made by him and a number of newspaper articles, this archive also contains a chronological list of works produced by him, the Liste approximative des travaux exécutés par Benoît Van Uytvanck et son fils Joseph et the ceux exécutés par ce dernier. The list is an approximate summary of the work made by Benoît Van Uytvanck and his son Joseph. It can be said with certainty that the works listed up to the time that Benoît Van Uytvanck withdrew to England with the arrival of the First World War were from his hand. During his absence, son Joseph continued the studio. After the war returns Benoît back to Leuven. From then on, it is more difficult to identify which works of art have been produced entirely by him and which by his son, the later successor of the studio. Furthermore, the archive also contains a number of letters, bills and assignments. Apart from a drawing on a piece of paper with the image of a statue of Our Lady, few drawings by Benoît Van Uytvanck have survived. This is partly because a number of drawings were so affected by microorganisms that they were lost. In the Bulletin des métiers d’art a number of works by Benoît van Uytvanck are explained with text and image. A catalog of the exhibition on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the St. Luke School in Ghent mentions a picture of Saint Juliana by his hand. of Benoît Van Uytvanck. Subsequently, the archive of the GAN (archive of the Guild of Crafts and Neringen) was reviewed, which can be consulted in KADOC on microfilms. Here the meetings of the guild are explained as well as the artisans with their specialty and what works they have made as a final project. For example, Benoît Van Uytvanck made a sculpture of Saint Peter as a final project around 1891 and the polychromy of that sculpture was performed by Oscar Algoet (1862-1937). The archive of the Bressers-Blanchaert studio is very extensive and is mainly located at KADOC in Leuven. The Blanchaert brothers and brother-in-law Adrien Hubert Bressers had their own studios. While Leopold and Leonard Blanchaert carved wood, sculptures and church furniture, Adrien Bressers specialized in decorating statues, retables and church interiors. The archives of both studios were later combined. Recently the archive of the glass negatives made by the studio has also been released in KADOC. It contained a black-and-white photo of the St. Francis retable in its original capacity, showing that there were initially six angelic statues on top of the altarpiece. The company archive contains 55 sketchbooks. Afterwards, additional sketchbooks from the Bressers-Blanchaert studio were donated to KADOC. The sketchbooks are a rich source of information. This provides a good handle for entering the world of the artists. It contains, among other things, pigments, materials, study trips, sketches of images and places where the artists have been, carried out their assignments, spent hours on the train, found accommodation ... The sketchbooks were viewed one by one sheet per sheet and structured in tables with their dates. , materials, pigments, products, assignments, colors and description, saints and assignments. After all sketchbooks had been researched and structured in this way, the materials and pigments were placed separately in tables per sketchbook. In addition to the sketchbooks of the studio, the devis book was also reviewed. All materials and techniques mentioned in the workshop's devis were listed. A definitive, clear table with pigments was made from all these data. On the basis of that pigment list and saved recipes from the studio, the found pigments were applied as far as possible (some pigments are no longer available) and printed on paper in a color scale. This provides an addition to the still preserved color samples from the drawing archive. From all found indications for used techniques and materials from these sources, the collected data was also put in a lock table.The locations found in the sketchbooks and what was produced for whom were ranked by year and typed out so that people could quickly see what was made where and the quantity of objects made per location. The list of commissions for murals and the polychroming of statues and church furniture was also typed for that reason. Most of the locations mentioned herein were already visited and documented in situ. The motivation behind this is to be able to offer an overview of the still preserved images and retables mentioned in the documents of this studio. There is also a box with small polychromed samples in plaster. These were viewed and studied to see which materials and techniques were applied to this. These polychromy fragments were also studied with a digital microscope from which photographs were taken. These could then be studied further afterwards and compared with the microscope photographs taken of Saint Joseph, Saint Elisabeth and the Saint Francis retable. A collection of plaster casts and also some terracotta statues of various saints is set up in the basement of KADOC, which was transferred from a warehouse in Maaltebrugge at the time. Some were very affected by water and moisture during their stay in the shed, as a result of which plaster parts were broken off or could no longer be stored. At that time, photos were taken of all the images on site. These can be viewed and consulted in KADOC. A power point from 2010 about the plaster collection can be read as extra reading.The archive of the Bressers-Blanchaert studio also includes a drawing archive in which all kinds of patterns of different sizes are worked out on different materials. There are drawings in pencil on drawing paper, tracing paper, baking paper and cardboard. Furthermore, there are also a number of punch motifs present that were probably used to transfer the patterns to the life-size images and the groups of figures in the retable. A few color swatches of pigments have been found in this archive and a large sketchbook with drawings. In the archive there are also some molds in copper, metal and a plaster of patterns that were used to make embossers. I only became aware of the preservation of such molds after I had already reconstructed a number of figures with all the different patterns I had encountered in the series of churches that I had visited in the summer of 2016, based on my research. Furthermore, a number of damasks from the 56 that have been there in total have been preserved, but they have not all been identified yet. Damask no. 55 would have been in Brussels for the sisters of the calvary. The damasks consist of linen cloth that is primed and then painted with oil paint and shown as a kind of swatch. The mesh of the linen fabric makes it visible at the back that the fabric itself was primed. The painted canvases were attached to a wooden stick for hanging and were numbered on the back. The canvases were rolled out several times and rolled back again, putting the paint under tension and about to bark or crack at some places. Furthermore, it will also be partly due to the climatic conditions and the former repository of the damasks. The archive also contains a large number of design drawings and execution drawings of murals that have been carried out in large format. This section is stored in KADOC II. There are also a number of drawings that have been worked out in large or small format on paper or tracing paper.

after dismantling the setting to study the build-up

materials inside the setting : 1 painted cardboard /feltlike material 2 metal foil glaced with a yellow glaze. This was put under the glass cabochon to enrich the brilliance of it. 3 glass cabochon

parts of the original wall painting in the original standing place (paters conventuelen chapel in Leuven) of the sculpture of Saint Joesph and Saint Elisabeth of Hungary and the Saint-Franciscus altarpiece found after removing the furniture in the chapel

preliminary tests of colour and gilding

tests for defying the mordant that was probably used

mixtions (found in literature) tested with stencils

colour scales made by the sculptures and the altarpiece

colour scales made by the information found doing research

reliefs and moulds