News from Dagestan

A team from Factum Foundation is in Dagestan to install a new portable manuscript scanner for the Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography in Makhachkala. The scanner will be taken on expeditions into Dagestan's mountains as part of a long-term campaign to digitise and study the thousands of Islamic manuscripts held by private collections in the region.

Read more about the project here.

The facsimile of the tomb of Seti I at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo

The exact facsimile of the sarcophagus of Seti I, produced in 2017 by the Factum Foundation and initially part of the exhibition 'Scanning Seti: The regeneration of a Pharaonic Tomb', is currently on view at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. The objects in the new exhibition 'Images of Egypt' intend to reflect an ancient landscape in radical transformation.

Learn more.

Venice: Homo Faber, Veronese, workshop

During the exhibition Homo Faber (14-30 Sept. 2018) at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, two works by Italian Renaissance painter Paolo Veronese are being digitised with the Lucida 3D scanner, in collaboration with Open Care (Milan). The data, gathered before and after the diptych's restoration, will be used to inform and document the cleaning of the paintings. As part of this initiative, a practical workshop on surface 3D scanning will be carried out on September 21st - applications open here.

New recordings

This week, we have started the recordings of Raphael's cartoons at the V&A Museum in the UK, the ferroconcrete Research Vessel Heraclitus in Spain and a rock art cave under threat from flooding as a result of deforestation in Brasil... The beginning of September 2018 preludes amazingly busy months for the Foundation's team.

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Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli

The recording of the tomb of Cardinal Tavera initiated a collaboration with the Fundación Casa Ducal de Medinaceli that is a great example of what is possible when different foundations work together to record, archive, analyse, preserve and communicate the importance of Cultural Heritage. The first stage of the work, the complete high-resolution recording of the tomb is now finalised. The captured data was processed using the photogrammetry software Reality Capture.
Read more.

Recording the Cellini Bell at the British Museum

The extraordinary 'Cellini Bell' by Wenzel Jamnitzer (1507/1508 to 1585) was recently recorded at the British Museum in London. It is now being replicated in silver using several techniques to try to retain the extraordinary level of detail that characterises Jamnitzer's work. It will be included in the exhibition Lost Treasure of Strawberry Hill (20th October - 24th February 2019) in Twickenham.

Read more.

Recording of 11 Shabti figurines from the tomb of Seti I

A team from Factum Foundation has started the photogrammetric recording of eleven shabti statuettes from the tomb of Seti I, part of the permanent collection of the Museo Civico Archeologico of Bologna (MCABo). Ten statuettes are made of wood and one of faïence. Highly artistic in quality and larger in size, the latter shows the sovereign with the regal nemes headdress, the usekh pectoral as well as wide bracelets on his wrists, dotted with cobalt blue on a ground lapis lazuli. Read more.

A FACSIMILE OF THE WEDDING AT CANA
BY PAOLO VERONESE

Over a decade later, the facsimile of the Wedding at Cana still looks as it did on the day it was installed in its original position, on the end wall of the Palladian refectory on the Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. The copy, commissioned by the Fondazione Giorgio Cini and made by Factum Arte, is an exact facsimile of the painting that was recorded in the Musée du Louvre. Learn more about the project here.

The Lucida Lab Milano recording J. B. Jackson's Chiaroscuro woodcuts

A team from the Lucida Lab Milano started the recording of J. B. Jackson's Chiaroscuro woodcuts, in Palazzo Sturm, Bassano del Grappa's Civic Museum. Palazzo Sturm is one of the few museums in Italy dedicated to showing every aspect of Remondini’s industrial process within the 16th and 17th centuries as well as the phases in the production of books, decorated papers, religious and popular print makings, games, optical views, etchings and woodcuts.
Read more on the Lucida Lab Milano.

Recording "Maria Sethe, afterwards Madame Henry Van de Velde" by Theo Van Rysselberghe

Factum Foundation's team started the digitisation of the painting "Maria Sèthe, afterwards Madame Henry Van de Velde" by Theo Van Rysselberghe, collection of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp.

Read more on recording projects here.

RECORDING PARMIGIANINO'S SELF-PORTRAIT IN VIENNA

Factum Foundation's team went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna to record Parmigianino's self-portrait in a Convex Mirror (1524). This small painting, measuring just about 20 cm in diameter, is one of the masterpieces in the museum's Picture Gallery. The data collected from this project is currently being processed. Read more.

FACTUM ARTE'S PROFILE, BY PATEK PHILIPPE

In his interview by Patek Philippe Magazine, Adam Lowe talks about Factum Arte, Factum Foundation, the creative energy that animates the workshops and the contemporary artists, artisans and secular masterpieces that run them.

Click here to watch the video.

RECORDING MURILLO'S FRAMES IN SEVILLE

In February and March 2018, Factum Foundation digitized two large paintings by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. As part of the project, the paintings' two ornate gilded frames, made by Bernardo Simón de Pineda, were also digitised with close-range photogrammetry.

This project was carried out in collaboration with the Hermandad de la Santa Caridad, the Caixa Foundation and the IAPH. Read more.

TOLKIEN: MAKER OF MIDDLE-EARTH - EXHIBITION

In conjunction with Factum Foundation, Factum Arte's contribution to the Bodleian Library's exhibition Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth (June, 1st - October, 28th) is a dynamic cartographic 4D model of Middle-earth. A screen-based video is visible through carved translucent resin, and a video-projection adds further layers of factual and cartographic information, including the routes taken by the characters in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Read more.