A 15th-century Flemish enclosed garden in cuir bouilli. Production, degradation and conservation issues of a small painting on leather

摘要

An early 15th-century figurative cuir bouilli coffretlid, with remains of original polychromy, belongingto the town museum in Nivelles (Belgium), wasstudied and conserved in 2013. Cuir bouilli is themedieval Norman-French term for ‘boiled leather’.The technique was widespread in Flanders andParis in the High Middle Ages. The scene depictedis an ‘enclosed garden’ with the Virgin and Child.The cuir bouilli artefact has been severely damagedby environmental conditions and previous restorations.There are large lacunas in the deformed andhardened leather support, as well as in the pictoriallayers. This paper explores the historical context ofthe artefact, the production of the material, its useand conservation history. Results of reflectancetopographic imaging (RTI) are followed by physicochemicalanalyses and the treatment protocolto stabilise and validate the importance of this losttechnique of medieval leatherworking