Nancy K. Turner will present at the Syracuse University Libraries’ annual Brodsky Series for the Advancement of Library Conservation. The hybrid lecture, titled “Materials of the Illuminator’s Art: Medieval Recipes, Modern Identifications, and the Preservation of Pigments, Dyes, and Metals in Medieval Manuscripts,” is being held on Wednesday, March 29, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in Bird Library’s Peter Graham Scholarly Commons and on Zoom. Register to attend the lecture.
The hands-on workshop, titled “Illuminations Magnified in a Different Light: A Workshop in Close Looking,” will be held on Thursday, March 30, from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Antje Bultmann Lemke Seminar Room and the Joan Breier Brodsky ’67, G’68 Conservation Lab, Special Collections Research Center, 6th floor of Bird Library. The onsite workshop is limited to 15 people and registration is required by emailing mlwagh@syr.edu. All events are open to the public.
The annual Brodsky Series for the Advancement of Library Conservation is endowed through a generous gift by William J. ’65, G’ 68 and Joan ’67, G’68 Brodsky of Chicago. Beginning in 2004, the endowment has been used to sponsor programs featuring prominent library conservators that promote and advance knowledge of library conservation theory, practice, and application among wide audiences, both on campus and in the region.
Nancy Turner
Nancy K. Turner is the conservator of manuscripts in the Department of Paper Conservation at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she has been responsible for the care of the museum’s collection of illuminated manuscripts since 1984. Turner received training in book and paper conservation, including an advanced internship at the library of Trinity College Dublin.
A specialist in the conservation treatment and technical study of parchment, painted illuminations and historical bindings, she has been published widely. Turner was a major contributor to the Fitzwilliam Museum’s exhibition catalogue Colour: the Art and Science of Illuminated Manuscripts edited by Stella Panayotova (Harvey Miller: 2016); updated and revised with Elizabeth C. Teviotdale Understanding Illuminated Manuscripts by Michelle Brown (Getty Publications: 2018), which won a Choice outstanding academic title award; and most recently authored “Surface Effect and Substance: Precious Metals in Illuminated Manuscripts” in Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts (De Gruyter: 2021). Her article, “Materiality of Medieval Parchment: A Response to ‘the Animal Turn’,” was awarded the Fredson Bowers Memorial Prize in 2018 by the Society of Textual Scholars.
Turner received her B.A. in Art History and Anthropology from Stanford University and earned an M.A. in History from UCLA.
“Materials of the Illuminator’s Art: Medieval Recipes, Modern Identifications, and the Preservation of Pigments, Dyes, and Metals in Medieval Manuscripts”
Wednesday, March 29, 3:30–5 p.m., Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Bird Library and Zoom
This lecture will survey the medieval illuminators’ pigment palette across five centuries, as identified by various technical and analytical means and with reference to medieval technical treatises. The materials used by manuscript illuminators, including pigments, dyes and metals, while relatively limited in number, were deployed by illuminators in staggeringly varied ways to achieve a wide range of painterly effects over the centuries. By highlighting the high degree of mastery and deep knowledge of these materials by manuscript painters working from the tenth to the early sixteenth centuries, this lecture will feature new discoveries in the conservation lab and ongoing technical research that continue to reveal secrets of the illuminator’s art and inform the methods of their preservation.
CART services will be provided. Email mlwagh@syr.edu by Monday, March 20, if American Sign Language or other accommodations are needed.
Thursday, March 30, 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., the Antje Bultmann Lemke Seminar Room and the Joan Breier Brodsky ’67, G’68 Conservation Lab, Special Collections Research Center, 6th floor of Bird Library.
The starting point for any technical investigation of medieval manuscripts is close looking. This hands-on interactive workshop held onsite at the Special Collections Research Center will introduce participants to the basic techniques for close looking used by conservators, including the use of magnification with a microscope and the deployment of various light sources.
These methods help enable researchers to begin to determine an illumination’s material components, layer structure, stages of execution and interventions. Complemented with a slide discussion, the workshop will guide participants in the close study of illuminations and their painting materials, including explorations within the manuscripts at SCRC. Participants will also have an opportunity to prepare some traditional pigments used in illuminations.
Due to limited space available onsite for the workshop, advance registration is required by emailing mlwagh@syr.edu. Lunch will be provided for workshop attendees; if you require an accommodation or have dietary needs, please email mlwagh@syr.edu.
