Technical Examination and Conservation of the Painting “The Death of Sapphira” by Ambrosius Francken II: Contribution to the Artist Technique

Know that there ought not to be less time spent in learning than this: to begin as a shopboy studying for one year, to get practice in drawing on the little panel; next, to serve in a shop under some master to learn how to work at all the branches which pertain to our profession; and to stay and begin the working up of colors; and to learn to boil the sizes, and grind the gessoes; and to get experience in gessoing anconas, and modeling and scraping them; gilding and stamping; for the space of a good six years.Then to get experience in painting, embellishing with mordents, making cloths of gold, getting practice in working on the wall, for six more years; drawing all the time, never leaving off, either on holidays or on workdays.And in this way your talent, through much practice, will develop into real ability.(Cennini 1994:chap.104, p. 64) A thorough knowledge of various wood species and their properties and uses appears throughout Cennino's writing (see Table 1).That Cennino clearly takes information on wood species for granted suggests that it was common knowledge at this time.However, no mention is made of processing logs into boards, nor of selecting, edging, shaping, drying, or gluing of boards together to form the whole support.This absence may indicate that such expertise was not considered to belong to the artist's field, although the artist would often have specified the size, shape, and other features of the finished panel.