Category: Modern(ish)

Vasa in dire need of support

Modern(ish)

The Swedish royal warship Vasa, meant to be the flagship of King Gustav II Adolf’s new powerful naval fleet, sank 400 from the dock in Stockholm bay on its maiden voyage in 1628. It was raised from the sea bed in 1961, preserved by the cold waters in eerily good condition. It was conserved for 27 years at the Wasa Shipyard before moving into its permanent home at the custom-built Vasa Museum in 1988. It has been one of Sweden’s top tourist destinations ever since, drawing upwards of one million visitors a year.

Now, 395 years after it went down the first time, Vasa is sinking again. The steel shoring struts that have been supporting it since 1964 are insufficient to bear the ship’s great weight, and worse than that, the cradle is putting pressure on the fragile timbers, cracking and warping them. Vasa is continuously being monitored and measured to detect any potential conservation issues, and the data show it is sinking downwards and outwards at a very slow, but very steady rate of a millimeter a year. As gradual as the shifting is, if uninterrupted, the ship will start falling apart.

The Vasa Museum has undertaken a wide-ranging investigation to discover what kind of pressures Vasa‘s wooden structure can stand, teaming with researchers from Uppsala University, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, the KTH Royal Institute of Technology and other institutions. They have identified several decomposition processes that are causing the wood to deteriorate much more rapidly than it did in the cold, brackish waters of the Baltic. The current strength of the ship’s timbers is no more than 40% the level of normal oak.

In such a weakened state, the timbers are simply incapable of bearing the weight of the rebuilt ship. To address this fatal structural instability, the Vasa Museum team is going back to the drawing board, redesigning the support structure starting with a new internal support system that will rest on a new external support. The internal structure will be a framework of pipes that will unobtrusively add load-bearing strength and lock the ship into shape, preventing that constant movement downwards and outwards. The external supports will be streamlined and strengthened and then connected to the internal support network.

This is an absolutely huge project and unfortunately it cannot be accomplished without making changes to the ship itself. Parts of the interior will have to be removed and placed in storage to make way for the new internal structure. New holes will have to be drilled into the hull. Even the floor underneath it will need to be reinforced.

“It’s a big job,” said [project director Magnus] Olofsson. “We have already been researching for four years to see how we are going to do it, and then we’ve been working on construction drawings for four years and now we are beginning the build, which will also take about four years.”

They have being carrying out test operations on full-scale models to make sure their plan will work. They do not, however, know exactly how much the vessel weighs. They estimate between 900 and 1,000 tonnes.

But the project is coming at a substantial cost, which the self-funded museum is appealing to donors and sponsors to finance. The museum’s director, Jenny Lind, said she was hopeful the Swedish public would come through to raise the funds to embark on the ship’s “biggest challenge” since its salvage and conservation.

“When Vasa was salvaged, the whole of Swedish society came together and made it possible to salvage this ship. It wasn’t just the state, it was private companies, big actors in society that helped out, but also private individuals,” she said. “So that’s why we’re coming out again and saying we need help again.”

Right now the Vasa Museum is not set up for easy online donations, just bank transfers (information here) and contributions via the Swish app (info here).

Forum of Peace excavation reveals millennia of Roman history

Ancient, Medieval, Modern(ish), Roma, Caput Mundi

An excavation of the Temple of Peace built by Vespasian in the Imperial Forum in Rome has revealed thousands of years of Roman history, without even reaching the imperial era yet.

The Templum Pacis was built by the emperor Vespasian (r. 69-79 A.D.) between 71 and 75 A.D. in celebration of his victories in the First Jewish–Roman War. Vespasian had personally led the Roman legions that crushed the rebellion in Galilee in 67 A.D. and after his elevation to the purple took him to Rome in 69 A.D., he left his son Titus behind to besiege Jerusalem. Jerusalem fell to Rome in the summer of 70 A.D. The loot from the sacking of Jerusalem funded the construction of Vespasian’s new temple to Pax, the goddess of peace.

A large and important temple facing what would become the Colosseum, The Temple of Peace is probably best remembered today for something added to it long after Vespasian’s death. It was the home of the Forma Urbis, an incredibly detailed map of Rome 60 feet wide carved on 150 marble slabs that documented the floorplans of every building, monument, bath, street and even staircases in the city to a scale of 1:240. It was hung on an interior wall of the temple by the emperor Septimius Severus in the first decade of the 3rd century. It was damaged in the 410 A.D. sack of Rome by Alaric, and gradually more and more of it was lost. Like much ancient marble, in the Middle Ages it was harvested to make lime. Today only 1,186 pieces of it (10-15% of the original) survive, and they are still being puzzled together.

The excavation of the eastern section of the temple, an area never archaeologically investigated before, began in June 2022 and came to a close just last week.

The discovery of cellars and large kilns, which can be easily imagined to have been the fate of many imperial marbles transformed into lime, reveals to archaeologists the evidence of the great complexity of the area, which had not been subject to archaeological investigations until now. Moreover, with the upcoming excavations, thanks also to the funds from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), it will probably be possible to reach the imperial phases and, why not, even the earlier ones. The hope is that this relatively small section of the Imperial Forums, not adequately investigated with the currently used methodologies, may bring some new interesting data to the understanding of an area that is only seemingly well-known: written sources, views, nineteenth-century photographs, and old-style digs (not scientific excavations) from the first half of the twentieth century do not represent a sufficient heritage to understand the phases in a city that has been constantly transforming for millennia like Rome.

Smallest Rembrandt portraits rediscovered

Modern(ish), Museums

A pair of portraits that are the smallest Rembrandt ever painted have come back to light after falling into obscurity in a private collection for 200 years. Before they were sold at auction this summer, Rijksmuseum experts were engaged to research the works and the subjects. Their exhaustive investigation confirmed the attribution to Rembrandt and the identities of the sitters. The portraits went on display at the Rijksmuseum on Wednesday.

The subjects are Jan Willemsz van der Pluym, a wealthy slater and plumber in Leiden, and his wife Jaapgen Caerlsdr. They were 69 and 70 years old respectively in 1635 when the 29-year-old Rembrandt painted them. He was the top portraitist in Amsterdam at that time. Wealthy burghers paid huge sums to be immortalized by the most sought-after artist in the city. The wedding portraits of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, now co-owned by France and the Netherlands, were the only life-sized, full-length portraits Rembrandt ever painted. The 19.9cm-by-16.5cm oval portraits of Jan and Jaapgen are the smallest portraits he ever painted.

Experts believe he may have painted them as a favor because Jan and Jaapgen were family friends and relatives by marriage. They were visiting Amsterdam for a baptism at that time and Jonathan Bikker, the Rijksmuseum’s curator of 17th-century Dutch painting, believes he may have asked Rembrandt to scare up a couple of portraits right quick which he would then make large copies of later.

The van der Pluyms had a close bond with Rembrandt’s family, which began in 1624 when Jan and Jaapgen’s son Dominicus wed Rembrandt’s cousin Cornelia Cornelisdr van Suytbroek. Suspicions that the portraits were by Rembrandt’s hand were confirmed after extensive technical research conducted by the Rijksmuseum using X-radiography, infrared photography, infrared reflectography, macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF), stereomicroscopy and paint sample analysis. When taken together the various research results amount to compelling evidence. First of all, the bold and vigorous style used to render these portraits corresponds with Rembrandt’s rapid execution of other portraits and tronies from 1634 onwards. Similarly, the manner in which changes were made during the painting process is also consistent with other paintings by the artist. These alterations are visible in both collars and Jaapgen’s cap. Examination with a stereomicroscope revealed that the portraits were built up in a similar manner to other portraits painted by Rembrandt in this period. Moreover, the pigments match those frequently used by Rembrandt, including lead white, lead-tin yellow, bone- or ivory black, various earth pigments, vermilion and red lake. The same brown, iron-containing paint was used for both inscriptions, along with the signature and date on the portrait of Jan. The portraits also bear striking similarities regarding the buildup and composition of the paint compared to other portraits painted by Rembrandt in 1634 and 1635 – especially in the construction of the facial features and the loose brushwork.

The portraits remained in Jan and Jaapgen’s family until they were sold after the death of their great-great grandson Martenten Hove in 1760. They passed through a few titled hands after that, eventually being sold by James Murray, 1st Baron Glenlyon, at a Christie’s auction in 1824. The portraits entered a private UK collection after that sale and were unknown to scholars until a descendant decided to sell them.

They were sold in July in an auction at Christie’s in London for £11.2 million. The buyer was Henry Holterman, who then turned around and gave them to the Rijksmuseum on long-term loan. Holterman said:

The Rijksmuseum has the largest and most representative collection of Rembrandt paintings in the world. Given my close relationship with the museum and the fact that the team of experts has been conducting research into these portraits over a period of years, I feel that these works belong in the museum.

Diana Cecil’s lips restored to former thin splendor

Modern(ish), Museums

Restoration of a 17th century portrait of Diana Cecil, great-granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth I’s chief advisor William Cecil, has revealed her original thin upper lip and high forehead, removing the overpaint that had artificially plumped her pucker and lowered her hairline. The conservation also revealed the signature of the artist and the date hidden in the folds of the curtain: Cornelius Johnson, 1634.

The portrait is one of two of Diana Cecil in The Suffolk Collection, a group of 400 works, many portraits of aristocrats and royals but also other masterpieces by the likes of Vermeer, Turner and Rembrandt, amassed by the Howard family from the 17th to the 20th century. Diana’s sister Elizabeth was married to a Howard, which is how the portraits came to be in the collection. The greatest portraits of The Suffolk Collection are nine full-length pieces by the premiere Jacobean portraitist William Larkin, one of which is a 1614 portrait of Diana Cecil painted when she was about 15 years old. Her high forehead and fine upper lip are in evidence even at that young age.

Diana Cecil was considered one of the great beauties of the Jacobean nobility. She married twice, first to Henry de Vere, 18th Earl of Oxford, in 1624, barely a year before his death, and again in 1629 to Thomas Bruce, who would be created 1st Earl of Elgin by King Charles I in 1633. The newly-restored portrait of Diana was made the year after her husband received that rich favor.

In the later portrait, Cecil wears a fashionable blue satin bodice and full, trailing skirt. In contrast to the earlier portrait, elite fashion is characterised by understated elegance, rather than opulently patterned fabric or complicated layering, English heritage said.

Plain silk, satin or taffeta were the height of fashion, with one or two focal points, such as the red ribbons laced across the front of Cecil’s bodice, holding the stomacher in place, and a matching red rose at her breast and a patterned fan, which she holds half-open in front of her.

The Suffolk Collection is displayed at Kenwood House, a stately neoclassical villa in Hampstead administered by English Heritage. The later portrait of Diana Cecil recently underwent conservation so that it could be put on display. It had suffered significantly from having been rolled up widthways, damaging the paint surface, and old varnish had yellowed, dimming the once-brilliant colors. The removal of the old varnish uncovered the touch-ups to her lips and hair, likely made in the late 19th or early 20th century in a failed attempt to repair some of the damage from the rolling and update her looks in keeping with beauty standards of the time while they were at it.

Alice Tate-Harte, collections conservator (fine art) at English Heritage, said in a press release: “As a paintings conservator I am often amazed by the vivid and rich colours that reveal themselves as I remove old, yellowing varnish from portraits, but finding out Diana’s features had been changed so much was certainly a surprise!

“While the original reason for overpainting could have been to cover damage from the portrait being rolled, the restorer certainly added their own preferences to ‘sweeten’ her face. I hope I’ve done Diana justice by removing those additions and presenting her natural face to the world.”

The restored portrait of Diana Cecil will go on display next to the portrait of her second husband Thomas Bruce at Kenwood House on November 30th.

London workhouse had painted walls, fireplaces

Modern(ish)

The remains of an early 19th century London workhouse suggest that it did not start out the bleak, uncomfortable environment so vividly described by Charles Dickens and other Victorian writers. The plastered walls were painted a soothing light blue; the rooms were heated with fireplaces; even hot water bottles were available.

Since early this year, archaeologists from the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) have been excavating the two-acre site before construction of a new state-of-the-art ophthalmology center. It is part of a five-acre site that includes St. Pancras Hospital, originally St. Pancras Workhouse, named after the neighboring Church of St. Pancras in what was then a suburb of London.

The workhouse was built in 1809 to accommodate 500 indigent people, often families. An infirmary was added three years later, and by the middle of the 19th century, the population of the workhouse had increased more than threefold, fluctuating between 1,500 and 1,900 at its peak. Additions to the workhouse and infirmary were built to keep up with the number of residents. The workhouse was finally shut down in 1929 and its surviving buildings folded into the hospital.

As the name suggests, the idea of the workhouse was that the state would provide relief to the poverty-stricken in the form of a roof over their heads and enough food to survive in exchange for their unpaid labor. Church parishes were part of the administration of relief initially and there was some flexibility in the treatment of indigent families and individuals. That came to an end with the 1834 Poor Law.

By the 1830s, conditions inside the workhouses were dangerous, cramped and prison-like. Infectious diseases were rampant, beds were crammed into every possible space and inmates worked long hours on industrial production lines. Other means of relief, like parish disbursements that did not require institutionalization, were discouraged and the poor encouraged to sell whatever scraps they still owned to be allowed into the workhouse. Children were separated from their parents and the workhouses turned to profitable enterprise administered by businessmen. All workhouse inmates, adults and children, were assigned to painful, repetitive hard labor like crushing bone to make fertilizer, or picking oakum.

The area currently being investigated was known to have had some workhouse structures, but they did not survive. They were damaged in the Blitz and demolished after World War II. The MOLA team has been excavating the site where these buildings once stood and expected to find their foundations, ground floors and associated artifacts.

The new evidence suggests the St Pancras workhouse may have started out with a greater interest in support than deterrence. Williams said: “While the facilities are spartan, the inmates were not there to be punished … There were gardens, an infirmary and nursery. These acknowledge their needs as much as the heated rooms, or the pale blue paint on the walls.”

The finds include institutional crockery – with plates bearing an image of St Pancras and the words “Guardians of the Poor St Pancras Middlesex” – and the remains of a bone toothbrush with horsehair bristles, suggesting the importance of personal hygiene.

Inmate hygiene, comfort and even basic needs like a modicum of heat fell by the wayside after the Poor Law and the explosion of the population at St. Pancras. Henry Morley, a friend and collaborator of Charles Dickens, mentioned St. Pancras Workhouse in an article entitled The Frozen-Out Poor Law published in Dickens’ publication All the Year Round in February, 1861:

A woman, during the intense frost, was met in the evening carrying home her weekly quartern loaf from Saint Pancras Workhouse. (Was it not there that guardians of the poor, not long ago, excited wrath among parishioners by putting themselves on the parish for hot dinners at their weekly meetings?). The woman was met shivering with cold; she had been waiting for her dole, from twelve o’clock till half-past four, in a room with a stone floor, which she declared had not been warmed in any way. “I could have stood it better,” she said, “if there hadn’t been such a dreadful could draught from them wentilating places all round the floor.” The “ventilators” out of which the cold blast came, were the pipes of the disused warming apparatus. If was desirable to use that apparatus for the benefit of paupers, even when the thermometer wavered between freezing and zero. […]

A vestryman is asked whether this woman’s story, not the first or the tenth of its kind, could be true ; were the poor really exposed to so much suffering when they came for relief? “Yes,” he replied, ” and wilfully. I have tried to effect a change, but only three would side with me. The rest thought that if the poor creatures were made too comfortable, more would come.” We take our illustration from St. Pancras simply because it is natural for anybody to look to St. Pancras of evil repute, when he wishes to lay his hand on any sort of abuse incident to the administration of the Poor Law. But the illustration serves for the whole system, which makes workhouses discouragements to poverty, and gaols encouragements to crime.