This summer, I spent three months as a curatorial research fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome. A library, research center, and photographic archive, the Bibliotheca Hertziana is one of the most significant institutes dedicated to art history across fields. Bringing together researchers from around the world, it offers a unique forum for scholarly inquiry. It is located just by the Spanish Steps in the impressive Palazzo Zuccari, a 16th-century mansion with a memorably monstrous doorway.
Museum exhibitions and publications are planned years in advance, yet it is often difficult to set aside necessary time for research and writing. This fellowship offered me the incredible opportunity to launch a new project with dedicated space and time: “Corrosive Thinking: Metals, Making, and Atmosphere in Early Modern Europe” examines how artists and their audiences understood the breakdown of metal in the period from 1450 to 1550. The experiments that artists conducted in attempting to prompt or forestall corrosion were fundamental to the development of scientific knowledge about the environment.
Whereas the modern museum aims to conserve works of art and ensure their continued stability, my research looks at the ways in which early modern artists across different media were aware of the decay and breakdown of their works. Rusting iron and corroding copper, among other metals, make such losses highly visible. For instance, the drip of rainwater over the bronze surface of the famous equestrian monument of Marcus Aurelius has turned the metal green.
The gilding on the surface, abraded over the centuries, would have originally protected the bronze from such corrosion. Yet, as the gold layer wore away and exposed the bronze, the statue steadily deteriorated. As a result, the sculpture is now located inside the Musei Capitolini to protect it from further environmental destruction.
Part of my research time was spent in the library, reading through 15th- and 16th-century sources about metals and compilations of artists’ recipe books, which describe everything from how to prepare a varnish to how to remove stains from cloth. I also made ample time to get out into the city to examine works of art in person. Rome was the ideal place to think about the role of corrosion in the early modern period. Its museums, churches, and streets preserve layers of history in varying states of preservation. Nor was my study of corrosion limited to sculptures, as metals were harnessed for many different artistic processes. For instance, the pigment ochre was popular for painting panels as well as frescoes. Composed of iron oxide, better known as rust, ochre is very stable because it does not corrode further. Its characteristic range of orange and red hues can be identified in numerous works, such as the frescoes in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
Examining corrosion allows us to look at familiar and unfamiliar works of art in a new light. We can begin to understand how artists understood the durability—or fragility—of their production. My time in Rome was an essential stage in developing this project on corrosion in early modern Europe, and I’m thankful for the support of the Bibliotheca Hertziana for making this research possible.
This post was authored by: Elizabeth Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elizabeth (Beth) Rice Mattison is the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art. She joined the staff in July 2021 as the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Curator of Academic Programming. In addition to serving as the liaison between the museum and Dartmouth’s faculty, Beth researches, exhibits, and expands the Hood Museum’s collection of European art. Her academic research focuses on the art of northern Europe in cross-cultural context and has been published in Gesta, The Metropolitan Museum Journal, The Burlington Magazine, and Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art, among other venues. She holds a PhD in art history at the University of Toronto and an MA and BA in the history of art from Yale University. She has previously held positions at the Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, Victoria University in the University of Toronto; the Musée du Louvre; the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art; and the Yale University Art Gallery.
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