Technical procedures used for copying paintings since the Renaissance according tothe sources of the time.

Abstract

The copy in painting was a phenomenon widely extended and developed in the European workshops of the Modern Age. Despite being a practice that enjoyed little consideration in much of the artistic literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, some eminently practical texts collect information on the various procedures used for this purpose. The present article proposes a revision of such methods used for the duplication of paintings, attending to Renaissance artistic literature, including not only treatises but also other writings, as well as engravings. Two large groups of basic processes are distinguished: on the one hand, the ones for obtaining the model and, on the other hand, those for its subsequent fixation. The choice of a method of each of the groups supposes a wide variety of resulting combinations, which leave their characteristic imprint in the work that is duplicated or in the duplicate itself. The proper systematization of these procedures could be useful in the study of the works of the various workshops and schools, especially in those workshops where the pictorial copy became a common phenomenon.