Hamilton Kerr Institute

Academic Staff

 

Research description

Having first read Modern Languages at Somerville College, Oxford went on to train as a conservator of easel paintings at the Courtauld Institute of Art and has been a practicing conservator for 20 years (Agrée au Musée du Louvre et les Musées Régionaux de France). She is fully devoting her time to the research and teaching of technical art-history, specialising in the 16th, 17th centuries in Italy and the 19th century in France and England.

Helen Glanville’s particular research interests are the links between the materials used by the artist, and the perception of these by the beholder, in particular in the 17th century in Italy and France. Research includes data obtained from paintings, as well as research into published and unpublished scientific, literary and musical material. The influence of Leonardo’s observations on the painterly practice and theory in 17th century Italy and France are also areas of research. More generally, the advances in the understanding of neural pathways and colour perception as applied to the cleaning of paintings is very much another active area of research and future publications.

In 2010 she was Invited Guest Scholar of the J.Paul Getty Museum to further her research in these areas, and has received three CHARISMA – Archlab grants to have access to the technical data available on Poussin in the Louvre and the Prado.

She has worked (and published) collaboratively on Titian with the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence and ENEA in Rome, and is currently working on a collaborative article on Caravaggio with the Hermitage Museum in St.Petersburg.

Ongoing Research areas and interests

Ongoing research on the technique of Nicolas Poussin in terms of visual perception and materials employed, in the context of 17th century optics, and more generally the cultural climate of 17th century Rome. in 2010, this research has also been funded repeatedly by CHARISMA (European Funding Project).

Recent publications include:

Publications in Press

• H Glanville The Painting as Material Interface between Artist and Beholder, Conservation: Principles, Dilemmas, and Uncomfortable Truths, conference, Royal Academy of Arts, London 2009

Select Publications

• H Glanville Veracity, Verisimilitude and Optics in Italy at the turn of the 17th century, KERMES, No.84, February 2012
• H Glanville, Patrizia Riitano and Claudio Seccaroni La Bella e le Fanciulle di Vienna e San Pietroburgo: spunti per una lettura integrata, Exhibition Catalogue “La donna che ha la veste Azzurra” – il restauro della Bella di Tiziano, Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Edifir 2011
• H Glanville Cesare Brandi, Newton e la National Gallery London, Atti del Convegno, Brandi oggi, Accademia dei Lincei, Roma 2008
• H Glanville Relativity and Restoration, and glossary of terms relating to restoration and painting technique., History of the restoration and conservation of works of art (Translation of Alessandro Conti’s Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opere d’arte. (Electa 2002), Elsevier Heinemann 2007
• H Glanville Cesare Brandi, Newton e la National Gallery London, Atti del Convegno,”Brandi oggi”, Accademia dei Lincei, Roma, June 2007
• H Glanville Preliminary report on the paintings on canvas and wood in the Palace and Preliminary report on the samples taken from the Entrance Hall of the Palace , Report from the Seminar to discuss the Conservation of Catherine the Great’s Chinese Palace, Oranienbaum,Russia , World Monuments Fund in Britain/Samuel Kress Foundation 2005
• H Glanville Colour Theories in Pre-Raphaelite Painting Techniques , ed. Joyce Townsend, Tate Gallery Publications 2004
• H Glanville La Découverte et la restauration du Tintoret d’Agen: le restaurateur comme traducteur, Les Belles Infideles de Tasso, proceedings of the symposium, Université de Aix-en-Provence 2003
• H Glanville Introductory essay: Relativity and Restoration, and glossary of terms relating to restoration and painting technique, History of the restoration and conservation of works of art (Translation of Alessandro Conti’s Storia del restauro e della conservazione delle opere d’arte. ) , Elsevier Heinemann 2002
• H Glanville Veracity,Verisimilitude and Optics in Italy at the turn of the 17th century, Italian Studies, 56 2001
• H Glanville, Y Lintz Exhibition “feuilleton” on the discovery, restoration and attribution of the painting, Le Tintoret d’Agen, http://195.6.126.155/culture/musees/beaux_arts/mini_sites/tintoret/ 2000
• H Glanville Victorian painting technique: craft reinvented, Art in the Age of Queen Victoria, Exhibition Catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London 1999
• H Glanville Les Goya du Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Agen : notes sur la technique et ses enjeux, Revue du Louvre 1998