Page 334 - Copper and Bronze in Art: Corrosion, Colorants, Getty Museum Conservation, By David Scott

Copper as a Substrate for Paintings

CHAPTER J O

A

although copper
as a support for painting was not really used
much before the sixteenth century, at least in European art, there are earlier references to this
unusual art form: In the twelfth century, Theophilus mentions oil painting on copper leaf; dur­
ing the early fifteenth century, the Florentine painter Cennino Cennini used it for works in tem­
pera. When oil painting on copper was in vogue, many works of art on such supports were
i
made, although it is not always clear f copper, brass, or bronze was used. By the eighteenth cen­
tury, however, this curious use of copper was already in decline. Bowron (1999) provides a use­
ful historical critique of the subject.

E A R L Y C O A T I N G S A N D F A B R I C A T I O N M E T H O D S

In some cases, a copper support was itself coated with tin, silver, lead, or even zinc once that
metal had become available in Europe after the fifteenth century. Coronation of the Virgin, a