Biographies carved in wood: Turning points in the lives of two medieval Virgin sculptures

Abstract

Conservation and History (IAKH) for generously providing me with funding to undertake further research trips. I would also like to acknowledge the Kaia and Torfinn Tobiassens Fond for covering the cost of an additional research trip to Germany. Countless people have supported and guided me throughout the PhD period. I would like to thank my amazing supervisors Lotte Hedeager and Michael Rief for guidance, advice and support during the second half of my stipend period. I am grateful to the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo for granting access to the sculptures, and particularly to Torunn Klokkernes and Anne Lene Melheim for granting approval for analysis. Many thanks to conservators Eivind Bratlie and Kaja Kollandsrud for their trust, allowing me to use their conservation atelier, giving me a helping hand when handling the sculptures, and generously sharing their knowledge about the museum collection with me. I am thankful to the Getty Conservation Institute for hosting me during my research stay in Los Angeles, and for the warm welcome offered to me by Tom Learner, Michael Schilling and Gary Mattison. In particular, I would like to thank Joy Mazurek for generously sharing her time, knowledge and expertise in GC-MS, and Herant Khanjian for his support with FTIR. Special thanks are due to my fellow PhD colleague Kristin Kausland, whose strength, knowledge and friendship helped me significantly during difficult times. I would like to thank Per Ditlef Fredriksen as Head of Research for keeping an open door for me and providing me with advice and a listening ear. I am grateful to Duncan Slarke for friendship and technical support, as well as for being my anchor of sanity within Conservation Studies. Our amazing librarian Lisa Benson deserves mention for having gone out of her way in helping me get hold of literature. I would like to thank Unn Plahter for useful constructive criticism during my midway evaluation. I am grateful to Calin Steindal at the Saving Oseberg project for extensive technical support with SEM-EDS. I would also like to thank Aoife Daly for undertaking dendrochronology, and Bjørnar Slensvik and Heidi Debreczeny Wilkinson at the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute for use of the CT scanner. Thanks are also due to Steinar Kristensen for advice on photogrammetry, Jan Brendalsmo for sharing his knowledge about Norwegian church history, and Rebecca Cannell for advice with map-making. The following individuals have generously shared their knowledge and expertise

A skewed balance?

“…The object certainly enters new spheres of social entanglement within a museum context. 33 In paper IV, this situation is mirrored by the plaster cast of the Torsken Virgin which continues the museum sculpture's life in parallel within Torsken community on Senja island (Ebert 2018c).…”

“…With relation to research theme 1, it may be much more crucial how an object was used over the centuries rather than where and by whom it was made. Thus, as outlined in paper IV, whether the Torsken Virgin was made in Germany, Norway, or a combination of the two, is of lesser importance than how it has been valued and used over the centuries (Ebert 2018c). Of course, this is not to downplay the importance of research into provenance, but merely to act as a reflection of my personal research interests, while adding a new perspective that complements other approaches.…”

“…Challenging former attributions has been of secondary importance in my research, as my main interest has lain in the sculptures' object biographies (paper IV) (Ebert 2018c). In addition, I have also characterised composite wainscot block construction techniques specific to northern German and both northern and southern Netherlandish workshops (paper II) , and provided a critical reassessment of joint altarpiece attribution of two sculptures (paper III) (Ebert 2018b).…”