This book is the seventh in the Readings in Conservation series, which gathers and publishes texts that have been influential in the development of thinking about the conservation of cultural heritage. The present volume provides a selection of more than ninety-five texts tracing the development of the conservation of works of art on paper.
Comprehensive and thorough, the book relates how paper conservation has responded to the changing place of prints and drawings in society. The readings include a remarkable range of historical selections, such as Renaissance printmaker Ugo da Carpi's sixteenthcentury petition to the Venetian senate on his invention of chiaroscuro, Thomas Churchyard's 1588 essay in verse “A Sparke of Frendship and Warme Goodwill,” and Robert Bell's 1773 piece "Observations Relative to the Manufacture of Paper and Printed Books in the Province of Pennsylvania."
These selections are complemented by influential writings from such figures as A. H. Munsell, Walter Benjamin, and Jacques Derrida, along with a generous representation of recent scholarship. Each reading is introduced by a short discussion of the rationale for its selection and the principal matters covered, and the book is supplemented by a helpful bibliography.
This publication can be ordered at shop.getty.edu.