ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The 1875 Plaster Cast Competition and the Emergence of Chemical Expertise in German Art Conservation

• In Event: Institutions and Standards in the 19th and Early 20th Century

English Abstract

While few plaster casts of sculptures or architecture exist today, such facsimiles were crucial parts of early museum collections in the nineteenth century. In the newly unified German Empire, the development of cast collections and challenges in their care led the government to fund research on the material. This paper discusses the prize competitions established by the German government and overseen by leading artists, art historians, and chemists of the day—including August Wilhelm von Hofmann and August Kekulé—and its role in shaping the developing field of art conservation. I argue that chemists’ focus on reducing the permeability of the surface of plaster and resulting dominance of the competition is an example of the application of scientific methods and expertise to understanding art materials and questions of preserving art, a key development in nineteenth century conservation. This previously undocumented episode in conservation history has broader implications for the history of science and technology, as the results of the competition were taken up in the system of credit of the time, as chemist Friedrich von Dechend continued working on plaster and patenting an apparatus for applying the award-winning liquid hardener, with less credit given to his artist collaborator Louis Sussmann-Hellborn. The high level of support given to this problem also underlines the importance of plaster casts as a tool for disseminating specific, standardized objects to build shared cultural heritage. This application of scientific and technical frameworks to issues of cultural importance in Germany paved the way for modern conservation.

Author

• Leib Celnik, Johns Hopkins University