AGNES Talks: Andrew Weislogel, “The WIRE Project”

2020

Andrew Weislogel, “The WIRE Project: Crowd-Sourcing Watermark Identification toward a Broader Understanding of Rembrandt’s Etchings”

This talk was part of the symposium Rembrandt and Leiden: New Perspectives that took place at Agnes Etherington Art Centre on 8 November 2019. The symposium featured new research by international scholars on Rembrandt and his circle, Leiden and Dutch culture in the seventeenth century, connecting the exhibition “Leiden circa 1630: Rembrandt Emerges” with new perspectives on the artist and his era.

Andrew Weislogel is the Seymour R. Askin, Jr. ’47 Curator of Earlier European and American Art at Cornell University’s Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. Dr Weislogel has organized numerous exhibitions at the Johnson, including “Etchings by Rembrandt from the Collection of S. William Pelletier” (2004); “The New and Unknown World: Exploration and Trade in the Dutch Golden Age” (2011); and most recently “Lines of Inquiry: Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings” (2017), whose catalogue was awarded the 2019 Alfred H. Barr Jr. Prize at College Art Association.Andrew Weislogel, “The WIRE Project: Crowd-Sourcing Watermark Identification toward a Broader Understanding of Rembrandt’s Etchings”
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Chapters

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Introduction
Introduction
0:00

Introduction

0:00

Paper Making Process
Paper Making Process
4:53

Paper Making Process

4:53

Paper Characteristics
Paper Characteristics
6:03

Paper Characteristics

6:03

The Goal
The Goal
10:23

The Goal

10:23

Structural Diagram
Structural Diagram
12:26

Structural Diagram

12:26

Reconstituting Editions
Reconstituting Editions
14:05

Reconstituting Editions

14:05

The Wire Watermark Discovery
The Wire Watermark Discovery
14:45

The Wire Watermark Discovery

14:45

Arms of Amsterdam Watermark
Arms of Amsterdam Watermark
18:51

Arms of Amsterdam Watermark

18:51

Autogenerated Transcript from YouTube (if available)

Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript​.

Introduction

0:00

[ Background conversations ]

0:12

> I am delighted to introduce our
next speaker, Andrew Weislogel.

0:16

Who is the Seymour R. Askin, Jr. 47 curator
of earlier European and American art

0:23

at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art at
Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York.

0:29

He holds a BA in Medieval Studies from
Hamilton College, and an MA and PhD in Italian

0:34

and French Renaissance art from Cornell.

0:38

He has organized numerous exhibitions at
the Johnson, including Etchings by Rembrandt

0:42

from the collection of S.
William Pelletier in 2004.

0:46

The New and Unknown World: Exploration and
Trade in the Dutch Golden Age from 2011.

0:52

And the catalogue from his most recent
exhibition is called Lines of Inquiry:

0:58

Learning from Rembrandt’s Etchings.

0:59

It won the College Art Association’s
Alfred H. Barr prize

1:03

for distinction in museum scholarship.

1:06

We do have a few copies of that catalogue
here, along with books by our other speakers.

1:11

And they’ve all asked me to
inform you that they really don’t want

1:15

to take all those copies back home again.

1:18

[laughter] So I hope you
will find them of interest.

1:22

Doctor Weislogel is going to talk
to us today about the project

1:28

that is related to that recent exhibition.

1:30

Its called, he has a longstanding interest
in technical art history and has participated

1:37

in dendrochronological dating
and X-ray fluorescence mapping

1:42

of paintings using Cornell’s synchrotron.

1:46

And I don’t even know what that
is so you’ll have to tell us.

1:49

It sounds extremely impressive, and it is.

1:52

This is really what’s brilliant about this,
is that it’s a marriage of science and art.

1:57

And the WIRE Project, which
he’s involved with stands

2:02

for Watermark Identification
in Rembrandt’s Etchings.

2:05

Its an innovative, interdisciplinary project
that brings together students from art history

2:11

and computer science designed to expand access
to knowledge about Rembrandt’s printmaking

2:16

and our understanding of his
techniques as a printmaker.

2:19

So we will hear about that
now, Doctor Weislogel.

2:22

[ Applause ]

2:33

> Thank you, Stephanie for that wonderful
introduction and for the invitation.

2:36

Its such a pleasure to be
with you all this afternoon.

2:39

I also want to extend my
thanks to Max Valsamas too,

2:41

for his wonderful organizational efforts.

2:44

And all the lovely fellow scholars
that we get to spend the morning

2:49

with today before the program
began, in the beautiful

2:54

and bountiful exhibition here at the Agnes.

2:58

Today I’d like to cover the
following as time permits.

3:02

So its good that we’ve all been re-caffeinated.

3:05

Hold onto your seats.

3:06

I’d like to start with some papermaking
and watermarks background of course.

3:11

Then introduce the WIRE Project at Cornell
and some of its goals and progress.

3:16

Share some examples of watermark
discoveries encountered along the way.

3:21

Briefly touch on watermarks as they relate
specifically to Rembrandt’s Leiden period

3:26

since that’s what we’re about today.

3:27

And discuss some future directions
for the project.

3:30

And hopefully I can fit that
all into the next 25 minutes.

3:36

So.

3:43

It all starts and ends with paper.

3:46

As my colleagues here all well know,
every sheet of paper made in Europe

3:51

in Rembrandt’s time regardless of its
ultimate use comes from one of these.

3:55

A paper mould and the deckle
that keeps the sheet rectangular

4:00

when the mould is dipped into the vat.

4:04

Here we see the three main components of
every paper mould in Europe at this time.

4:09

The laid wires running horizontally.

4:11

The chain wires running vertically.

4:13

And the watermark sewn with
fine wire to the mould.

4:18

At right you see a freshly couched
sheet of paper from this modern mould.

4:24

You can see the indentation or thin area
left on the paper by the watermark wire,

4:29

as well as the chain and laid lines there
before the sheet of paper actually dries.

4:34

Here’s an example of a more
complex post-torn type watermark,

4:39

probably from the 19th century,
again sewn to a mould.

4:43

So just a few words about
the paper-making process.

4:46

Because this is important to understanding
Rembrandt’s process and how we date his prints.

Paper Making Process

4:53

So let’s see.

4:54

The first important thing to know is
that the paper-making process in Europe

4:58

at this time consists of two rotating moulds.

5:02

And the watermarks on these
rotating moulds that rotate

5:05

through the vat are as identical as possible.

5:07

But of course, they’re made by humans and
so there are slight variation between them.

5:11

They’re not quite identical and
so we call those twin marks.

5:14

And every sheet of paper that comes from
the batch has one of those two marks.

5:18

And every paper, every print
that we find printed on a sheet

5:23

from that batch is therefore
datable to that same batch.

5:28

There’s a three person team
involved in making paper.

5:31

There’s the vatman, who is in charge
of the operation and dips the mould.

5:36

There’s the coucher, who turns the mould inverted

5:39

and inverts the fresh sheet
of paper onto a felt.

5:43

And then there’s the layer, who
takes the moist sheets out from

5:47

between the felts, stacks them for pressing.

5:50

And the whole thing rotates
over the course of a workday.

5:54

And artisans working this way could
turn out about 1,000 sheets in a day.

5:57

So it was a really quite efficient process.

Paper Characteristics

6:03

Here is a sheet of probably 18th
century paper made for the Dutch market.

6:08

We can tell it was made for the Dutch
market because it has a pro patria watermark

6:12

which shows the Maid of Dordrecht on
the right there in a palisade enclosure.

6:18

It also features a countermark, a secondary
watermark usually on the left side of the mould

6:23

that served as a further
identifier for the paper.

6:27

Now if we knock that photo down to grayscale

6:31

so you can see it a little bit
better, the paper characteristics.

6:34

We can talk a little bit about what happens when
prints are made from a sheet of paper like this.

6:38

And you actually have to cut it up in
terms of how we read the watermarks.

6:42

I think you can see that if you print four
prints in a quarto format on a sheet like this,

6:48

you can still see the watermark
underneath there, hopefully.

6:51

The upper left part of the sheet won’t
get any identifying characteristic

6:55

at all except the chain lines.

6:57

The bottom left will get the countermark
until the margins of the print are trimmed.

7:02

And then that’s gone.

7:03

And the two on the right will
each get a partial watermark.

7:06

And this is important to keep in mind because
when we look at Rembrandt’s prints we actually

7:11

in practice, only find a portion
of a watermark on about a third,

7:14

1 out of every 3 Rembrandt
watermarks that we look at.

7:18

So there’s a lot of information
that gets lost in the process.

7:23

Let’s see.

7:24

So just a little bit of background on
our project, that we’ve been working

7:30

at Cornell for the past four years roughly.

7:33

This is the 3-volume set by Erik Hinterding at
the Rijksmuseum who is the acknowledged expert

7:40

on Rembrandt watermarks, which
provides the basis for our project.

7:44

And he is in turn drawing on scholarship
by legends such as Allan Stevenson,

7:49

Nancy Ash, Shelley Fletcher and others.

7:51

Here are some of the things
that watermarks can tell us.

7:57

We can learn where the paper was made.

8:01

All of Rembrandt’s paper was made outside
the Dutch Republic and imported in.

8:06

In what year a specific impression was printed.

8:08

When and how rapidly Rembrandt made state
changes or plate changes to his plates

8:14

to affect the visual of the image.

8:17

Which plates he was printing at the same time,

8:19

and therefore which older plates he
was reprinting as he made new ones.

8:22

Which is important as well.

8:24

And of course, what most people want to know,

8:26

whether a print was made during
Rembrandt’s lifetime or not.

8:32

Some assumptions about the scholarship
that we need to carry going forward.

8:37

One, paper was expensive.

8:39

And so Rembrandt usually bought small
batches and used them up as quickly

8:43

as he could to recoup his investment.

8:45

What that means is you can date each
batch to roughly a particular year.

8:50

Or at least many batches are datable
to a particular year, period and time.

8:54

And that also means that the
latest date of a plate printed

8:58

on a given paper batch dates
all the other impressions

9:01

of other plates found on that same paper.

9:04

It’s a last date, dates the
batch kind of phenomenon.

9:09

So let’s look at a couple of watermarks here ok.

9:12

I think you can pretty easily tell these apart.

9:15

But you can also tell that
they’re of the same type.

9:19

They’re both a double-headed eagle type.

9:20

It’s a type of paper made in Switzerland.

9:23

Now how about these?

9:25

Those are a little harder to tell apart, yes?

9:29

You could probably do it but you’d have to come
up with a descriptive language to do so, yes?

9:34

Well, in this case you don’t have to worry
too much because these are twin marks.

9:37

They’re from the same batch of paper.

9:40

So anything appearing on this paper is
going to be datable to the same time.

9:44

However, if we have two like this
these look even almost more identical

9:48

than the previous two, but
these are not twin marks.

9:56

The double-headed eagle watermark on the
left is found on prints dated to 1637,

10:01

while the one on the right is
found on prints dated to 1645.

10:05

So if you mix them up, you miss
dating the impression of the print

10:09

that you’re looking by a range of eight years.

10:12

And that’s not really acceptable.

10:14

So part of what our project is designed
to do is to combat these types of mixups.

The Goal

10:24

So the basic goal, the current goal of the
WIRE Project is to create an online interface

10:29

that allows people to upload their own
watermark images and answer a series of yes

10:34

or no questions to get to the correct
match in the existing Rembrandt taxonomy.

10:40

This is student project that
we’ve been working on for a few.

10:43

We’ve taught eight semesters of
research seminars to build this tree.

10:48

And I’m happy to say the
decision tree is nearly complete.

10:52

And so we’re in the testing phase of that now.

10:58

So I wanted to show you a little bit of what
that looks like by taking a test example.

11:03

So here is a Strasbourg bend
watermark, so-called for the bend

11:06

or the diagonal stripe that
we see on the shield.

11:10

When you use our interface, you’ll
come to this page on the website.

11:15

You’ll click the centre button and
you’ll be offered an opportunity

11:18

to upload your own watermark image.

11:22

When you do so, then you’ll be taken to a
page where there are roughly 50 odd types

11:27

of Rembrandt watermarks that are known appear in
a scrolling, up and down sort of configuration.

11:33

And you can choose the correct watermark type.

11:36

Once you’ve chosen the correct type,
you can look for the correct subvariant,

11:40

by answering a series of
yes or no questions here.

11:43

Such as, are there initials below the shield?

11:45

In this case, you can see that there are.

11:49

And other questions continue.

11:52

If you get stuck, you can have access to
this image which reminds you what the names

11:56

of the parts of the watermark are called.

11:59

And when you get to the end, you can see you’re
at the arrival page where a match is reached.

12:07

And in future, information
about other impressions

12:10

on this same paper will appear
right here on the site.

12:13

And if your watermark doesn’t match at this point
you can click the little oval yellow button

12:18

at the bottom, and it sends me an email.

12:23

[laughter] So I’ll be looking out for those.

12:25

This is the actual structural diagram that
lives behind the scenes of the website.

Structural Diagram

12:31

This is the pattern of yes or no
questions that leads to every subvariant

12:34

of the Strasbourg bend watermark.

12:36

And this is a small branch.

12:37

Some of our branches have upwards
of 60 different types in them.

12:41

So this is a lot of intensive work that the
students have put in over a series of semesters.

12:45

And what we can learn at the end of the
trail here is all the different prints

12:51

that appear on a given batch of paper.

12:53

And not only that, but as
I was mentioning earlier,

12:56

you can see which of those is
the latest plate on the batch.

13:00

And therefore when the earlier
plates were being reprinted.

13:04

In this case it’s the portrait
of Jan Cornelis Sylvius, 1646.

13:08

So you can see in this case, there are some
Leiden era prints that Rembrandt was reprinting

13:13

onto the same batch from his
new post in Amsterdam in 1646.

13:20

As we’ve been working on this project, we
have been sort of slowly building a consortium

13:25

of participating institutions who
have showed us their Rembrandt prints.

13:31

And we’ve identified their watermarks

13:32

and who are helping us test
the interface as we go forward.

13:36

And that’s the sort of crowdsourcing aspect
that you saw in my title at the beginning.

13:44

Its been immensely rewarding to build
these relationships along the way.

13:50

And we’ve benefitted from watermark data as
well, such as these radiographs that have come

13:54

to us from the Cleveland Museum of Art
which I’ll talk about in just a moment.

Reconstituting Editions

14:06

So I’d like to share a few
discoveries that the project has made.

14:12

And these fall into three basic types.

14:16

The first type is when you see watermark
you would expect to find on a certain print.

14:19

And that’s called reconstitution edition.

14:22

So the 1647 portrait of Ephraim
Bonus, for example.

14:26

Erik Hinterding had found eight on this
particular paper with a basilisk watermark.

14:31

The WIRE Project has uncovered
an additional five.

14:35

So we’re getting a sense of just how big this
particular edition of this portrait print was.

14:40

Bigger than we thought.

14:43

Also, we’re taking a similar census
of previously unexamined impressions

The Wire Watermark Discovery

14:49

of Rembrandt’s famous portrait of his respected
friend, the silversmith Jan Lutma from 1656.

14:56

This is a fascinating print
from many standpoints.

14:58

But there are questions around
the print’s production,

15:01

in terms of Rembrandt’s financial
situation at the time.

15:04

He declared bankruptcy as
we know, in July of 1656.

15:08

And around his role with later
impressions of the print.

15:11

And the possible role of the Lutma family
members in the print’s later production.

15:15

So a WIRE watermark discovery
got us thinking about this.

15:21

So the first date of the print you can see it
shows Lutma seated in front of a blank wall.

15:26

The second state includes a
worked-up window embrasure,

15:29

which completely transforms the print.

15:31

And again makes it saleable again to
presumably to the same public once again.

15:37

And then in the third state,
and its very difficult to see.

15:41

See if you can pick it out.

15:42

There is an inscription that says F Lutma X,

15:46

which stands for Francois Lutma,
the sitter’s son as publisher.

15:51

And this has caused some confusion and some
questions about the third state of the print.

15:58

There seems to have been some kind
of publishing arrangement made here.

16:01

Although this happened too with
other Rembrandt plates represented

16:04

by Barendrecht and Danckerts as we know.

16:08

At this point, one would normally
assume Rembrandt was no longer
involved
235
00:16:12,286 –> 00:16:13,746
in the printing of these impressions.

16:14

So however, when you discover watermark
matches like this of paper batches.

16:22

One, these are both in Cleveland.

16:24

One on the first state of the print, one on the
third state of the print that I just mentioned.

16:29

We believe this is the same batch of paper.

16:33

So this adds to the existing scholarship
of three other watermarks found

16:40

on at least the first and
third states of this print.

16:42

And sometimes all three, indicating
that the changes to the plate

16:46

for each state were made relatively
quickly within the span of one batch

16:50

of paper, in each case before it ran out.

16:52

Its also important because as we’ve just said,

16:54

the third state is supposedly published
not by Rembrandt, but by Lutma.

16:59

So technically that should be on
a different paper but its not.

17:02

It appears on the same paper
as the first two states.

17:04

So this situation raises questions about
Rembrandt’s relationship with the Lutma family.

17:09

And whether Rembrandt was still
involved with printing this plate even

17:13

after a new publishing arrangement
seems to have been made.

17:16

So the second type of watermarks are, come to us
via another student discovery from the project.

17:26

And that is finding known
watermarks on new prints.

17:31

Here we have Christ Presented to
the People the oblong plate, 1655.

17:36

The impression in the Morgan Library and Museum
which features a Strasbourg lily watermark,

17:41

which is never before seen on this print.

17:44

The only other print found on
this paper are several impressions

17:48

of Rembrandt’s famous Hundred Guilder print from 1648.

17:52

So the Morgan’s impression of Christ
Presented on the Strasbourg lily paper,

17:57

helps us first to date these Hundred
Guilder impressions appearing

18:00

on the same paper to after 1655 for sure.

18:04

And this is also interesting because watermark
evidence shows that sometime around 1654,

18:11

Rembrandt stopped making reprints from most
of his earlier plates, this one included.

18:16

Which suggests that he had somehow lost
control of his early stock of plates,

18:20

probably having to do with his financial,
growing financial insolvency at the time.

18:29

So does this watermark correspondence
therefore mean

18:32

that the Hundred Guilder print plate was
still in Rembrandt’s possession in 1655,

18:37

when Christ Presented to the
People was being printed?

18:39

We don’t know.

18:41

This is an open question.

18:43

But what it does mean is that certainly
these two prints were printed by somebody

18:46

at the same time, and that
was not previously known.

Arms of Amsterdam Watermark

18:51

The third type, is new watermarks
that have never been seen before

19:00

on any print, any of Rembrandt’s prints.

19:03

And so here is another example of an impression

19:08

of Christ Healing the Sick,
the Hundred Guilder print.

19:12

Which is clearly a posthumous impression.

19:14

But it still can shed light on the history of
a plate after Rembrandt’s involvement with it.

19:19

And I’ll tell you how.

19:21

This as I mentioned, is quite worn impression.

19:25

But transmitted light shows an
Arms of Amsterdam watermark.

19:30

This paper is produced in
the southwest of France,

19:33

where paper mills were owned by Dutch merchants.

19:36

And so they marketed a lot of paper
still to the Dutch Republic at this time,

19:40

with this Arms of Amsterdam watermark.

19:45

So first this gives us sort of a snapshot in
time of the plate’s condition of around 1745.

19:51

You can see the date at the
bottom of the watermark.

19:53

But its also a further link
in the plate’s provenance

19:56

that the Hundred Guilder print
plate was probably still being printed

20:00

in the Netherlands at this time.

20:02

Which we surmise, but this sort of
gives us a further evidence for that.

Rembrandt Watermarks

20:14

So let’s move briefly to some
Leiden prints by Rembrandt.

20:21

As the exhibition catalogue rightly points
out, Rembrandt produced about a third

20:27

of his etch plates while still in
or associated with his hometown.

20:32

However, so many of these were small plates.

20:35

The loonie is included for scale.

20:38

[laughter] And surviving such few
impressions overall, at least before 1631.

20:44

That its difficult to glean a lot of useful
watermark information from these early prints.

20:50

However, some information from some of the
larger impressions of his larger plates

20:56

at that time can be sort
of put into the mix here.

20:59

Scholars of course, have long wondered about
Rembrandt’s beginnings as an etcher in Leiden.

21:05

And for example, the discussion
continues surrounding a possible personal

21:09

or professional artistic relationship
between Rembrandt and Jan van Vliet,

21:13

the established Leiden printmaker.

21:16

Here we see an impression of Rembrandt’s
Good Samaritan in the collection of the Met.

21:21

The first state, where the horse’s
tail is still not filled in yet.

21:24

I think you can see that.

21:27

Hinterding tells us that the Arms
of Burgundy and Austria watermark

21:30

on this print is dateable to 1631 and 32.

21:34

And appears on 11 different Rembrandt
prints with plate dates from 1630 to 1632.

21:40

Likewise, 6 prints from 1631 by Jan van
Vliet also appear on the same paper.

21:47

Watermarks therefore can lend
credence to the idea of Rembrandt

21:50

and van Vliet sharing workshop
space or at least sharing paper,

21:53

or at least having known each other.

21:55

But what if Rembrandt and van Vliet
independently used the same paper supplier

21:59

or the same printer?

22:00

That’s a possibility.

22:01

So I think its worth citing
Stephanie’s arguments

22:04

in the catalogue for the present exhibition.

22:07

First, Leiden is not a very big place.

22:09

The likelihood of a collaboration has
a sort of common sense feel to it.

22:14

Second, did Rembrandt have
access to his own press?

22:17

He was after all living at
home in his parent’s attic.

22:21

And with respect to watermark
matches, I would further add

22:24

that from my experience studying watermarks,

22:27

the likelihood of this watermark overlap
being coincidental is quite small indeed.

22:33

And its also not the only
example of such an overlap.

22:36

So this is again, still an open question.

22:38

But one that watermarks can
continue to shed light on.

Rembrandt Later Reprints

22:48

Somebody give me a time.

22:48

Where are we at?

22:50

> Five minutes.

22:51

> Five minutes.

22:51

Ok.

22:59

Of course, we see examples of Rembrandt’s
Leiden prints appearing as later reprints

23:03

as we’ve already discussed, in Amsterdam.

23:06

And many of these pointedly date from
that period that I was talking about,

23:10

the early 1650s when he seems to
have had been printing more prints

23:15

because of his growing financial difficulties.

23:18

So for example, here The Small Lion
Hunt with Two Lions which appears

23:22

on this Foolscap watermark which
is dateable to around 1650.

23:27

Or The Rat Catcher, which is a subject
that Jan van Vliet also treated.

23:32

And impressions made in Leiden of
this print by Rembrandt also appear

23:37

on the same paper as Jan
van Vliet’s impressions.

23:40

But this one is later.

23:41

This is probably from around 1653 in Amsterdam.

23:44

Both of these impressions in our collection.

Conclusions

23:47

So just to wrap up, I’d like to sort of you
know, give you a sense of points of departure

23:56

for further avenues for this research.

24:00

There are a lot of implications.

24:03

And one is the possibility of branching
out from Rembrandt to those in his circle.

24:09

So Ferdinand Bol is a good candidate, for
his own decision tree treatment if you will,

24:15

as one of the few Rembrandt
pupils who had mastery

24:18

and productive success of the etching technique.

24:21

The hope here is that we might find overlap
between Bol’s prints and Rembrandt’s.

24:25

And as a matter of fact, this
has already begun in some sense.

24:30

With print drawing matches like this one
between the same watermark appearing,

24:36

the same paper batch being used to
create Bol’s drawing from the early 1650s

24:42

for the Amsterdam Town Hall
Commission and Rembrandt’s famous print

24:48

of The Three Crosses being printed
roughly simultaneously in about 1653.

24:52

So the question here is, did they
happen to buy the same paper?

24:56

Were they still friendly at this time long
after Bol had left Rembrandt’s workshop?

25:01

What are the implications here,
what are the possibilities?

25:04

And there are more matches
than just this one as well.

25:08

We also find drawing, drawing
matches, same watermark.

25:11

These are a little harder to see.

25:13

These are Arms of Amsterdam
watermarks that appear in respectively,

25:19

on the left on a famous drawing of Rembrandt’s
from the Ashmolean in Oxford, of the late 1650s.

25:28

and a Phillips Koninck landscape
in the Fondation Custodia in Paris.

25:34

So what does this mean?

25:37

Houbraken cites Koninck
as a Rembrandt pupil

25:42

but there’s no documentary proof
of that, that I’m aware of.

25:47

So again, this kind of match
might imply a relationship

25:53

between those two artists that
could be further explored.

25:59

And so, I think I’m probably.

26:03

I’m ok? Ok.

26:05

Thank you very much.

26:07

Max, you’re great.

26:08

And all of you, thank you.

26:11

So yes, the last bit is about
matching watermarks without, I’m sorry,

26:17

matching mould mates without
watermarks through chain line matching.

26:21

My colleague Rick Johnson, who some of you
know, has developed with his colleagues a method

26:25

of marking chain lines on radiographs of papers.

26:30

So that they can be fed into a
computer and matches can turn up.

26:33

And this is an example of that.

26:35

The red and the blue lines
work together to show a match.

26:40

And this is in fact a match between two
prints in the Morgan Library and Museum.

26:45

This print, which is formally attributed
to Rembrandt now given to his workshop.

26:50

And a print decidedly by
Rembrandt, the Medea print of 1648.

26:55

And you can see how those radiographs
overlap and the chain lines match.

27:00

And in this case, we can confirm that
the chain lines match because both

27:03

of them have the same watermark as well.

27:05

As a matter of fact, this is one of the
examples that got our project started.

27:09

So they refined this now.

27:12

The software is now improved such that you can
not only mark chain lines on an existing sample,

27:18

but it will automatically calculate
the ratios of the chain line spacing.

27:23

So that allows us to make more matches, such as
these mould mates here at the top of the page.

27:31

And also, to determine mathematical
matches between the relative placement

27:37

of watermarks relative to
chain lines on those sheets.

27:42

So the last thing I’ll mention, and
I thank you for your indulgence,

27:46

is a new collaboration that
we’re working on right now.

27:53

That’s supposed to be a white
slide but nevermind.

27:56

That we’ve just partnered with
Erik Hinterding’s publisher,

28:03

the publisher of the New Hollstein series Sound
and Vision publishers in the Netherlands.

28:07

So we’ll be consulting and collaborating
with them on a project they’re developing

28:12

which is called the Virtual Print
Room, an open digital platform

28:15

for the sharing of printmaking research.

28:19

So more to come on that.

28:21

And if you’re in Amsterdam and you
haven’t seen this exhibition yet,

28:25

check out Rembrandt Laboratory.

28:27

We were asked in the spring to contribute
a version of the WIRE decision tree

28:31

to this exhibition on technical
approaches to studying the master.

28:34

And if you go, you can see our kiosk there.

28:37

So up until February 20th, that’s on view there.

28:42

So I thank you very much for your indulgence.

28:45

And again, thanks.

28:48

[ Applause ]

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