The first widely used photographic process in which images could be produced on paper. Writing paper is prepared with solutions of silver nitrate and then potassium iodide. When required for use, it is treated with a freshly prepared solution of gallo-nitrate of silver. It is then exposed and the image is brought out by a further treatment with gallo-nitrate of silver and fixed with hypo. It was invented by the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot in 1839, patented in 1841, and was also know as Talbotype.
A natural clay sometimes used for grounds in oil painting (especially early Italian gold ground panel pictures). The most common is red bole, used since the Middle Ages as a ground for gilding. Clay grounds tend to retain moisture and can show through in thinly painted pictures, thus unintentionally darkening the overall effect.
The listing of previous ownership of a work of art, forming an essential part of its history. Provenance is usually given in the entries for works of art in scholarly catalogues of a particular collection or artist's oeuvre.
A relief print cut in linoleum, similar to woodcut. It was first used early in the 20th century and was taken up by Matisse in the late 1930's, and by Picasso, the majority of whose lino-cuts date from the late 1950's.Its cheapness and ease of use have meant that it has found particular popularity with amateurs and schools.
The outer curved surface of an arch or vault.
A method of applying a print to a ceramic surface, used mainly in the late 18th century. An engraved copper plate is inked with ceramic colour, a print is taken on to a flexible bat of soft glue or gelatine and then pressed on to the surface of the object to be decorated, resulting in a particularly soft effect.
An underdrawing in reddish-brown pigment made by a painter preparatory to painting a fresco. Many sinopie have been revealed by modern restoration techniques.
A term used to describe the work of various British artists in the 1930's including William Coldstream, Ivan Hitchens, Victor Pasmore, Rodrigo Moynihan, and Graham Bell, who experimented with depicting natural objects in such a way that they were transformed into lyrical patterns of coloured shapes.
Photographic prints made from glass negatives on paper coated with Albumen (white of egg) containing salt and sensitized before use with silver salts. The method came into widespread use in the 1850's and its popularity lasted until the 1890's.
(Italian, 'little box') The rectangular picture frame which evolved in Italy in the 16th and 17th centuries from the inner mouldings of tabernacle frames. The pilasters, pediments, and bases of the latter were dispensed with and one was left with what are commonly regarded as the basic elements of a picture frame. The Renaissance cassetta frame was essentially a decorative frieze between two narrow mouldings. The first truly movable cassetta frames were made in the Veneto in the early 16th century. Streamlined cassetta frames were used for framing whole collections, for example at the capitoline and Spada galleries in Rome. In the Baroque era the decoration of the basic cassetta frame became more elaborate with addition of centre and corner mouldings.
