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

Alabaster as a Material for Medieval and Renaissance Sculpture

Sophie Jugie, Marjan Debaene (eds)

  • Pages: approx. iv + 337 p.
  • Size:180 x 265 mm
  • Illustrations:5 b/w, 157 col., 10 tables b/w., 1 tables col.
  • Language(s):English, French
  • Publication Year:2026


Pre-order*
  • € 150,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE


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

Marjan Debaene and Sophie Jugie
Introduction

PART I. BACK TO THE QUARRIES: PROVENANCE RESEARCH OF ALABASTER

Sophie Jugie, Wolfram Kloppmann et Lise Leroux
Les albatres du Jura au XVe et au XVIe siecle : des archives aux carrieres, des carrieres aux oeuvres

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

Carmen Morte García, Jose Gisbert Aguilar, Alicia Muñoz del Pozo et Antonio Delgado Huertas
L’albatre, materiau du patrimoine culturel de l’Aragon: identification de la carriere dont proviennent des oeuvres du Museo de Zaragoza

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

PART II. HANDLE WITH CARE: INTERDISCIPLINARY CONSERVATION AND STUDY OF ALABASTER

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

Judy de Roy
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

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

Lucretia Kargere
Revisiting The Cloisters Fifteenth-Century Predella from Zaragoza

Matthieu Fantoni
Les etudes prealables a la restauration de la Vierge de Pitie de la cathedrale de Besancon : approche pluridisciplinaire d’une oeuvre en albatre de Conrad Meit

Petr Hrubý and Antonín Kadlec
Alabaster Furnishings in the Chateau Chapel in Krasne Březno

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

PART III. FROM POWER TO POWDER: THE MEANING OF ALABASTER

Jessie Park
Material Articulations of Power: Mary of Hamal, Jean Mone, and Alabaster Funerary
Monuments for the Croys in Sixteenth-Century Habsburg Europe

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

PART IV. FROM NOTTINGHAM WITH LOVE: ENGLISH ALABASTER IN CONTEXT

Lloyd de Beer
Alabaster, Industry and the Problem of Englishness

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

Index

RELATED PUBLICATIONS
Borman in Context View publication