Book Series Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture, vol. 2

Alabaster as a Material for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture

8th Annual ARDS Conference Postprints

Sophie Jugie, Marjan Debaene (eds)

  • Pages: approx. iv + 343 p.
  • Size:180 x 265 mm
  • Illustrations:5 b/w, 159 col., 10 tables b/w.
  • Language(s):English, French
  • Publication Year:2026


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This volume explores the historical, technical, and aesthetic dimensions of the use of alabaster in sculpture, providing critical insights into how alabaster has shaped artistic practices.

Subject(s)
BIO

Sophie Jugie is Senior Curator of Heritage and the Director of the Sculpture Department at the Louvre Museum. She specialises in sculpture from the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, as well as in the historiography of art history and the history of museums.

Marjan Debaene is Chief Curator of Old Masters at M Leuven and an expert on late Gothic Brabant sculpture and painting. She published M’s first sculpture catalogue in 2014 and has curated numerous exhibitions and collection presentations for the museum, including Signed, Jan R. (2012), Sculptures from Bruges (2015), Crossing Borders: Medieval Sculpture from the Low Countries (2017), Borman and Sons (2019), and Alabaster (2022). She also serves as coordinator of Ards

The Platform for Medieval Sculpture. Marjan studied Art History and Cultural Studies at KU Leuven. Her doctoral research, titled What’s in a Name? Leuven Sculpture Re-examined, focuses on sculpture produced in Leuven around 1500.

Summary

The 8th Annual Ards Colloquium, held at the Louvre Museum in 2021, focused on alabaster as a material in European sculpture. The event provided an in-depth examination of how alabaster was utilised by sculptors across Europe. A year later, in October 2022, M Leuven and the Louvre Museum partnered to present the 'Alabaster' exhibition, hosted at M Leuven. The exhibition, accompanied by a catalogue, offered a comprehensive exploration of alabaster, examining both its material and immaterial qualities. Featuring around 130 masterpieces, it showcased the diverse ways in which alabaster was employed throughout European sculptural history. This volume builds upon the themes presented in the exhibition, offering a detailed analysis of alabaster’s materiality and immateriality. It explores the historical, technical, and aesthetic dimensions of its use in sculpture, providing critical insights into how alabaster has shaped artistic practices.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword
Introduction

Part I. Back to the Quarries: Provenance Research of Alabaster

Les albâtres du Jura au XVe et au XVIe siècle : des archives aux carrières, des carrières aux œuvres
Sophie Jugie, Wolfram Kloppmann, Lise Leroux

L’albâtre de Saint-Lothain au monastère royal de Brou à Bourg-en-Bresse : son utilisation et son rayonnement
Magali Briat-Philippe, Wolfram Kloppmann, Lise Leroux

L’albâtre, matériau du patrimoine culturel de l’Aragon: identification de la carrière dont proviennent des œuvres du Museo de Zaragoza
Carmen Morte Garcia, Jose Gisbert Aguilar, Alicia Muñoz del Pozo, Antonio Delgado Huertas

L’albâtre dans la statuaire et la sculpture architecturale des vallées alpines d’Aoste, de Maurienne et de Haute Tarentaise (Savoie) aux XIVe et XVe siècles : des provenances locales confirmées
Lorenzo Appolonia, Philippe Bromblet, Raul dal Tio, Wolfram Kloppmann, Lise Leroux, Sylvie Cheney, Riccardo Giordano, Lili Davenas

Part II. Handle with Care: Interdisciplinary Conservation and Study of Alabaster

New Insights on St Catherine of Alexandria by André Beauneveu. Correct Identification and Provenance Analysis of the Original Sculpture Material and Latest Findings on the Polychromy
Judy de Roy, Laurent Fontaine and Géraldine Patigny

Alabaster Sculpture Through the Eye of the Conservator-Restorer. Obtaining Material Technical Knowledge About Alabaster Sculpture in the Low Countries through 70 Years of Conservation Reports
Judy de Roy

The Alabaster Collection of the Prado Museum and its Two Madonnas
Sonia Tortajada

Revisiting The Cloisters Fifteenth-Century Predella from Zaragoza
Lucretia Kargere

Les études préalables à la restauration de la Vierge de Pitié de la cathédrale de Besançon : approche pluridisciplinaire d’une œuvre en albâtre de Conrad Meit
Matthieu Fantoni

Alabaster Furnishings in the Château Chapel in Krásné Březno
Petr Hrubý, Antonín Kadlec

History and Polychromy of the English Alabaster Reliefs in the Church of Lade, Norway
Christina Spaarshuh, Elena Platania

Part III. From Power to Powder: The Meaning of Alabaster

Material Articulations of Power: Alabaster and Funerary Monuments of the Croÿs in Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Europe
Jessie Park

Powders and Plasters: Alabaster and the Curative Consumption of Holy Medieval Sculpture
Rebekkah C. Hart

Part IV. From Nottingham with Love: English Alabaster in Context

Alabaster, Industry and the Problem of Englishness
Lloyd de Beer

Women as Patrons and Consumers of English Alabasters: Evidence from the Parish Church of St Mary and St Andrew, Whittlesford, Cambridgeshire
Zuleika Murat

Bibliography
Index
Photographic Acknowledgments
Conributors

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