This article contextualises contemporary heritage imaging science at the John Rylands Library by exploring the twentieth-century development of its photographic services. Taking an archives-led approach, we argue that the core purpose of photography was to support research, primarily by providing access to textual content. We also consider the status and visibility of photographers and photographic services within this institutional context. Although the library has had a photographic studio since 1910, this was staffed by librarians rather than professional photographers for the first fifty years of its existence. The article examines in turn three overlapping areas of activity: photographic reproduction for publications; the supply of facsimile copies to researchers; and the use of specialist imaging techniques. Although digital technologies have transformed imaging activities at the library, their core purpose remains-namely, to facilitate research with the library's collections.
The findings of recent scientific investigation into the pigments employed in the ninth-century Psalter-Hymnal, JRRIL, MS lat. 116, are reported here. The pigments of this book are compared with those that have been reliably identified in other Carolingian manuscripts, with particular attention being paid to the use (or otherwise) of vermilion. Changing patterns in the utilisation of vermilion in manuscripts from late antiquity to the high Middle Ages are outlined, and possible reasons for fluctuations are considered.
This article surveys the advantages of using digital imaging to enhance the catalogue of a collection of Jewish amulets in the Rylands Library Manchester. Like manuscripts, there are obvious advantages in having images of amulets online, in terms of making them more widely accessible to scholars, in allowing more easy comparison one with the other, in promoting conservation by reducing handling, in aiding detailed analysis (e.g. through magnification) and in encouraging public engagement; but amulets pose their own distinctive problems: they are often 3D, which makes photographing them more difficult than photographing the flat surface of a manuscript. The article describes how 3D photogrammetry was used to solve this problem. It also describes how X-ray computed tomography was used to discover what was contained in a number of sealed amulets, without damaging the artefacts. These techniques are costly: the article concludes by calling for the development of criteria to guide us when they should be applied.
The article discusses the use of imaging methodology in research on featherwork heritage. The project team of historians, imaging scientists and photographers, conservators and curators was the first to systematically develop an advanced imaging approach to the study of historic featherwork. The object of analysis was a highly elaborate feather fan produced either in the Low Countries or in Dutch colonial Brazil, likely around 1665, that is today held in the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge. Building on existing scholarship by biologists, conservators and ornithologists, the article discusses the extent to which imaging approaches help contextualise discussions about photosensitivity, pigmentation and the fluorescence of feathers as well as species identification. Imaging also allows for new insights into crafts knowledge, intricate manufacturing skills as well as invisible artisanal interventions, such as the use of adhesives. Moreover, imaging generates new opportunities for the conservation and display of featherwork and provides momentum for novel collaborations to be built with Indigenous descendant communities and feather practitioners today.
