Material as an actor in transcultural networks between France and Germany in the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern era – Materi-A-Net

WP1 ‘Material and traces’ will extend and refine the geoscientific, non-invasive methods for tracing the history of an alabaster sculpture to determine the provenance of a work, the traces of the geological history of the material, its extraction, its transformation by the sculptor, its use and, possibly, its restoration. Based on studies of written sources on historical sculpture techniques, we will establish a typology of traces of work, which will then be recorded on selected works. An experimental programme on samples from known alabaster deposits will study the correlation between tool types and working techniques on the one hand, and traces on historical objects on the other. This complementary approach can corroborate the attribution of works of art to workshops and help to reconstruct the history of the works.
WP2 ‘Deposits, works and routes’ will research historical alabaster deposits in Germany and France, as well as local alabaster sculpture centres. This research will be based on historical sources, stylistic attributions of works to production centres, and geoscientific data. The information gathered on deposits, workshops and their works and on the distribution of the latter, based on research in archives, in the field and in collections, will feed the Materi-A-Net database (WP4).
WP3 ‘Patrons, intermediaries and artists’ will identify, for each case study, the human actors who participated in the creation of alabaster art: The naturalists or artists who discovered and opened the deposits, the sovereigns (or other quarry owners) who made an economic profit from them, the quarry operators, the performing and consulting artists, the artists' clients, the transporters, the (art) merchants. WP3 will collect information on their social and economic networks and on the reasons for choosing a specific alabaster or quarry.
WP4 ‘Actors and networks’ will act as a central interface, collecting, structuring, analysing and visualising all the information created by WP1-3. To this end, a digital infrastructure will be put in place, the core of which will be a web browser-based work platform that will ensure the flow of work between the working groups. It also contains a connection to the graphical database and other visualisation tools (maps based on a geographic information system, GIS). The web portal of the work platform will also give the scientific community and the general public access to Materi-A-Net data and research results (semantic database with vocabulary and thesaurus, maps of alabaster deposits and location of works of art or workshops, visualisation of networks).

In WP1 (‘Materials and traces’), a new non-invasive technique using near infrared spectroscopy was developed to distinguish marble from gypsum and anhydrite alabaster. We have extended the database of isotopic signatures to more than 350 works of art and quarries in France, Germany, Ukraine, Poland and Sicily. A typology of tool marks was created based on photographic studies, 3D models and experimental reconstructions, supported by a documentary film. An analysis of the works of the Rimini Master, based on 3D modelling, revealed similarities between works indicating possible serial production.
In WP2 (‘Quarries, works and routes’), historic quarries in Germany, France, Ukraine and Sicily were located by integrating geological and topographical data. A probable Avignon sculpture workshop from the late 14th century was identified, specialising in figures of the Virgin and distributing works along a Rhône-Meuse axis, with documented exports to Germany and Italy. For the 15th century, radiocarbon dating of the wooden tenons and adhesives on pieces attributed to the Rimini Master has enabled us to pinpoint the workshop's period of activity. As 16th-century texts indicate, a group of works of art from Lorraine and Germany are linked to a quarry near Metz. By including samples from the cathedrals of Trier and Mainz, we are attempting to confirm this link, which would reveal a hitherto unknown Lorraine-Moselle-Rhine axis.
WP3 (‘Patrons, intermediaries and artists’) studies the intermediaries who may have facilitated the transport of alabaster from Franconian quarries to the Master of Rimini, based in the Netherlands. For the 16th-17th centuries, the major commissions for funerary monuments, such as those from the courts of Hesse-Darmstadt and Hesse-Cassel, are studied to identify the works of art and evaluate their materials. The archives of the Counts of Castell provide information on the use of Castell alabaster.
In WP4 (‘Actors and networks’), data relating to works of art, deposits and historical figures were compiled in a CIDOC-compliant graphic model that links entities and semantic relationships. Accessible via a web interface, launched on a trial basis in September 2024, this database uses advanced visualisation tools to enable researchers and the public to explore the interconnections within the medieval alabaster trade network.
This comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach promises to advance our understanding of material supply, workshop practices and trade routes in the historical use of alabaster across Europe.

PT1 ‘Materials and traces’:
- Development of a method for non-destructive in situ analysis of trace elements in raw and worked materials using portable LIBS (instrument currently being acquired).
- Improvement of statistical methods for attributing a work to deposits, taking uncertainties into account.
- High-resolution 3D models of tool marks (Polytech'Tours)
PT3 ‘Patrons, intermediaries and artists’:
- Exploitation of archives in Bruges (import-export of raw material and works linked to the workshop of the Master of Rimini), Metz and Nancy (local orders and export via the Moselle and the Rhine) to confirm the links between careers and works.
PT4 ‘Players and networks’:
- Web interface final version, network analysis, publications
Citizen science approach
- Active involvement of numerous collaborators from civil society, amateur art historians, landowners and local associations, who provide in-depth knowledge of the history of certain deposits and associated works, deliver high-quality work and contribute to publications.
Coming soon: dedicated workshop in 2025

Productions scientifiques et brevets : (nombre de caractères : 0/3000)
Articles
• Kloppmann et al. (2024, soumis) “And hence have been a thousand mistakes”. Marble or alabaster : resolving an old problem of material identification with handheld near-infrared spectrometry. Archaeometry.
• Lipinska A. et al. (2023) Finde die sieben Unterschiede. Ein multidisziplinärer Ansatz zur Rekonstruktion des multiplizierenden Verfahrens in spätmittelalterlicher Skulptur. Variety, Variation, Multiplication in Premodern Art, Berlin, 13-15 Apr 2023. Article
• Jugie S. et al. (2024) L’albâtre et ses sources : incertitudes historiques et ambiguïtés de la documentation levées grâce aux analyses. Technè, 57 « Les choses et les mots : les textes à l’épreuve de la matérialité. », 49-59.
• Léourier Çavusoglu L., Kloppmann W. (2024) Un haut-relief composite en albâtre du XVIIème siècle : Techniques et matériaux utilisés pour La Dispersion des Apôtres de l’Étang-la-Ville (78). Coré, 7-Mars 2024, 62-78.
Congress presentations
• Kloppmann W. et al. (2022) Alabaster, a millenary stone of European cultural heritage. EGU General Assembly, Vienna, 23–27 May 2022.
• Kloppmann W. et al. (2023) The Missing Link: Franconian Alabaster for the Rimini Workshop 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies Kalamazoo, USA, May 11-May 13, 2023.
• Kloppmann W. et al. (2023) De Nottingham à Lviv : Les carrières historiques d'albâtre en Europe et leurs zones d'influence au fil des siècles. XXIVe colloque du GMPCA : Archéométrie 2023, Nice (France), 17-21 avr. 2023.
• Kloppmann W., Lipinska A. (2023) Archives matérielles : explorer la mémoire de l’albâtre. Atelier EHESS-CRH, UVSQDYPAC, CRH-C2RMF “Concordance et discordance documentaires des gestes, des textes et de la matière aux époques médiévale et moderne”, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, 26 Jan. 2023.
• Lipinska A. et al. (2024) Filling in the gaps on the map of Medieval and Early Modern European alabaster distribution by interdisciplinary approach. 36e congrès du Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art CIHA, Lyon, June 23 to 28, 2024.
• Kloppmann W. et al. (2024) Hunting a phantom quarry “four miles from Metz”: Transboundary trade of Lorraine alabaster in the 16th century. EGU General Assembly, Vienna, 14-19 April, 2024.
• Naumenko U. et al. (2024) Tracing alabaster from carriers to artworks: focus on Carpathian quarries. 22nd Swiss Geoscience Meeting, Basel 2024, Basel, 8-9 November 2024.
• Naumenko U. et al. (2024) The study of alabaster art objects in the cultural heritage of Ukraine using isotopic analysis methods. European Mineralogical Conference 2024, Aug 2024, Dublin, Ireland. ?hal-04719954?
Other media
• Film présentant le projet en général, puis les gestes, outils et traces d’outils lors du travail de l’albâtre tourné à Schwäbisch Hall en août 2024 (finalisation en cours)
• Serious game sur la traçabilité de l’albâtre (https://www.brgm.fr/fr/actualite/quiz-jeu/serious-game-decouvrir-laboratoires-brgm)

The project investigates the agency of artistic materials as a factor in cross-border Franco-German cultural networks. Specifically, this study focusses on the example of the exchange of the raw material alabaster and of alabaster artworks between France and Germany around ca. 1350-1650, i.e. during the period of the greatest popularity of this material. Unlike previous art historical approaches, which have primarily taken into account the human actors (artists, patrons, rarely other intermediaries, e.g. dealers) of the art transfer, this study examines the natural conditions of this process: the deposits of the stone, its properties, and the natural determinants of material procurement (extraction and transport possibilities). Thus, following the concepts of Actor Network Theory (ANT), the project aims to reconstruct the networks of human and non-human actors behind the mobility of alabaster using digital tools, and to draw conclusions about the circumstances of their origin. In doing so, it enquires, whether certain systemic structures that lead to the creation of a work of art are cross-epochal.
This question is examined in two case studies:
1) Localization of the workshop of the so-called Master of the Rimini Altarpiece (15th century). This study aims to better delimit the disputed origin of this important early 15th century alabaster sculptor by inventorying and mapping his works and the distribution of the material he used. Complemented by the study of possible transport routes, hypotheses regarding the artist's place of activity will be verified with the help of digital visualization methods.
2) Inter-court exchange in the Hesse-Lorraine-Franconia triangle in the 16th-17th centuries This case study examines the role of alabaster (as raw material and artwork) as an actor in inter-court relations between France and Germany using the example of selected courts that had alabaster deposits and commissioned alabaster works (Ducal Lorraine Court in Nancy, Landgravial Court in Kassel and Darmstadt, Prince-Bishop's Court in Würzburg). The focus is on the role of the itinerant artists working there as mediators of material knowledge and actors of inter-court communication.
In the project, the methods of art history (analysis of artworks and sources), geology (localization of the deposit), geochemistry (determination of the origin of the material samples) and restoration science (interpretation of work traces, experimental reconstruction) are combined and analysed transdisciplinarily by the approach of the Digital Humanities (structuring of the data from the above-mentioned fields of investigation in a graph database; mapping of the actors; hypothetical reasoning based on the visualization).