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d’archéologie orientale - Le Caire

Bois travaillé du Ier au XVe sc.1st to 15th century worked wood

Iwona Zych

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SKÁLOVÁ, Zuzana
Conservation problems in Egypt: Some remarks on the technology of post-medieval Coptic icons
BSAC 29
Société d’Archéologie Copte, Le Caire | Cairo, 1990, p. 55-62

[1701, 1800]
acacia acacia (lat. Acacia spp.)
eédre cedar (lat. Cedrus)
figuier sycomore sycamore fig (lat. Ficus sycomorus L.)
tamaris désertique desert tamarisk (lat. Tamarix aphylla L.Karst.)
Issues of wood conservation and worked wood technology:
– (p. 56): seldom overpainting of icons, because old and damaged icons were used as fuel for cooking holy myrrh (note 3 – practice persevering in Egypt until this day, cf. A.J. Butler, The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt (Oxford 1880, reprint 1970), vol. II, p. 332.
– Icon inscriptions speak of Greeks, Syrians, Armenians working for Coptic patrons (note 4) with Coptic ‘nomina sacra’ as sign language and the dedications and painter’s signature and date in Arabic.
– Natural presence of natrium in Wadi Natrun may have aided in the development of the wax-painting technique (57)
despite the gap, later (i.e. 18th century) icons were more or less made with the same materials and technology as were mummy and Fayum portraits.

Specific characteristics:
– support is usually local wood (fig, acacia, tamarisk) or imported (cedar), but also flax canvas, nailed on stretcher and backed by heavy, coarse wooden support, sometimes even glued to it;
– preparation layer, gold on primer or layer of red color which does not secure burnishing;
– technology process described: panel produced, linen applied, priming layer, background gilded, model drawing transferred and only then the artist came in to complete the icon;
– (p. 59) grouping of icons by technique:
a) big panels overlaid with canvas with a preparation layer of varying thickness, paint layer resembling post Byzantine Greek egg-yolk tempera technique;
b) various sizes, paper and canvas both on panels of hard wood, probably cedar, judging from their size. Perhaps by a scribe or illuminator from Persia, Turkey or Asia;
c) genuine plaster as primer with casein tempera on unslaked lime ground, legends in Arabic; emphasizing original concept of the icon as a portable piece of wall;
d) on strong flax canvas, nailed on stretchers and backed by heavy coarse wooden supports, sometimes even glued to them. This construction suggests classical wooden support and together with carved and painted frame looks typically Coptic. The thin priming layer has characteristic of glue tempera; varnished thinly. Bilingual — Coptic and Arabic;
e) all kinds on wooden supports.
Egypte Egypt consommation

Version 1, données dudata date 18 mars 2012March 18th 2012