Recording at the Museum Catharijne Convent

In collaboration with the Museum Catharijne Convent, Utrecht University, Leiden University and Technische Universiteit Delft, the Factum Foundation carried a non-contact, high-resolution 3D and colour recording of the Crucifixion (ca. 1425) by the Master of the Lindau Lamentation, on the 8th and 9th July 2021. The digital data obtained from the scans will be processed to generate a multi-layered view of the painting as a starting point for an experimental process of digital restoration.
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Bishop Auckland: work for the Spanish Gallery is almost complete

A number of yeserías were recorded in high-resolution throughout 2020 and 2021, using photogrammetry, LiDAR and the Lucida 3D Scanner in the Royal Alcázar and the Casa de Pilatos in Seville, the Casa de Mesa and the Sinagoga del Transito in Toledo. Facsimiles of the panels will form a plaster ‘lapidarium’ in the rooms created by Factum and Charlotte Skene Catling for the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland.
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Factum Foundation and RCU: final phase

Factum Foundation is delighted to announce that the project to record the Nabataean, Dadanite and Lihyanite heritage in the AlUla oasis in high-resolution 3D and colour is in its final phase after two years of intensive work. Over the past month of recording, the focus moved away from the tomb façades and inscriptions and towards the environments in which they sit.

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Factum and Colnaghi: recording a 16th century tapestry

Factum Foundation and Colnaghi are developing an increasingly close relationship. This month we have completed the full colour and 3D recording of both sides of an important tapestry by Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550) woven in about 1530 for Henry VIII. The resulting digital passport of the object will be essential to monitor the condition of the tapestry and will be used for conservation and research purposes.
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Recording in Venice: Titian's La Sapienza

For the exhibition 'Tizians Frauenbild' (5 October 2021 - 16 January 2022) at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien, Factum Foundation carried out the recording of Titian’s La Sapienza (c. 1560) at the Biblioteca Marciana. The painting was recorded on June 16th in Venice using composite photography by Gabriel Scarpa, with the aim of producing a facsimile that will be on display on the vaulted ceiling while the original will be in Wien for the exhibition.
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AI, Tech Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution

Adam Lowe, Founder of Factum Foundation took part in an international symposium on the role of advanced technologies in conflict and peacebuilding contexts, held in Toledo on 18th and 19th June 2021: the symposium was the first of many efforts to redefine the role of cultural heritage as a tool to facilitate mediation and conflict resolution mechanisms.

Read the Toledo Declaration
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Interview: On Preserving the Bakor Monoliths

Kate Fitz Gibbon from Cultural Property News interviewed Factum Foundation's Ferdinand Saumarez Smith on the challenge to document, record and preserve the Bakor Monoliths, and on the many projects regarding rock art carried out by the Foundation over the years.
"The real substance of this is the restitution issue and the importance of rethinking both ownership and preservation."

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Secretary of State permits boutique hotel on historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry site

It is with great sadness that we announce the outcome of the Planning Inquiry around the Church Bell Foundry in Whitechapel. Our sadness is really focused on the values that lie behind the decision. Consent has been granted to turn London´s oldest company, founded in 1570 and working until 2017, into a hotel, several restaurants, bars and a private members club.
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Recording carpaccio's Young knight in a landscape at the Thyssen-Bornemisza

Working closely with the Thyssen-Bornemizsa’s conservation team, who showed great interest in pushing the analysis of the painting further using Factum’s high-resolution recording methods, the Young Knight in a Landscape was digistised in 3D and colour in May 2021, along with its frame. The surface and colour data are in the process of being merged by a team of 2D and 3D specialists in Factum’s studios.
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Recording the Glosas Emilianenses

Factum Foundation is working with the Fundación San Millán de la Cogolla on the digitisation of the Glosas Emilianenses, considered to be the earliest surviving Castilian-language text, in Madrid’s Real Academia de la Historia. During the first week of April, Factum Foundation recorded several pages of the manuscript in high resolution, photographing the colour and using the Lucida 3D Scanner for the surface.
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Join the AaltoSiilo project

We are working on ways to reuse Alvar Aalto's Silo in Oulu as a creative research centre focused on the documentation of industrial buildings in northern Europe, on innovative technologies to record environmental change, and research into sustainable materials including cellulose.

If you are interested in being part of this dynamic and rapidly-developing project please contact us at info@factumfoundation.org.

Tutankhamun 2022

Next year is the hundredth anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun by Howard Carter and his team. Factum's 3D and colour data, recorded in 2009, is in demand and we are following instructions from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities about how to make the data accessible.

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Recording and facsimile project for the Benaki Museum

In honour of the 200th anniversary of the formation of the Greek State, the Rothschild Foundation has commissioned a facsimile of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s portrait of John Capodistria, which normally hangs in the Waterloo Chamber at Windsor Castle and forms part of the Royal Collection. After its recording in high-resolution in August 2020, the painting was re-materialised as a facsimile and will be on display at the Benaki Museum. More on the project

Recording The Sacrifice at Lystra tapestry in Mantua

Between February 24th until the first week of March, a team from Factum Foundation has been recording the tapestry made after Raphael's Cartoon The Sacrifice at Lystra at Palazzo Ducale in Mantua, Italy. The recording, arranged with Arnold Nesselrath, is part of the ongoing research into the production of tapestries and the cartoons from which they were made.
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