The Umling painter–carpenter workshop in Transylvania

Abstract

Transylvania is a distinctive cultural area of eastern Europe, with a diverse heritage due to its multi-ethnic and multi-denominational character. A significant part of Transylvanian built heritage is decorated with painted carpentry work. Most of this belongs to sacred interiors and includes items such as coffered ceilings, pulpits and their testers, stalls, pew and gallery parapets, communion tables, hymnal stands, and doors. They are mainly made from softwood and painted in a glue-based technique with ornamental patterns and motifs. A chronological overview of the painted coffered ceilings of the region is given. The works of the eighteenth-century Umling painter–carpenter workshop are then presented. Found in over 40 Transylvanian churches, this corpus of works is outstanding both in terms of the quality and number of items. The study provides an overview of this heritage, its technical and scientific study, its present condition, complex decay processes, and conservation treatments.

Keywords:

• Painted carpentry work
• Transylvania
• Painted coffered ceilings
• Umling workshop
• Degradation
• Survey
• Conservation approaches
• Analysis

Acknowledgements

Márta Guttmann acknowledges the financial support provided from programmes co-financed by the Sectoral Operational Programme Human Resources Development, contract POSDRU 6/1.5/S/3 – Doctoral studies: through science towards society. The authors would like to thank Dr István Sajó, Chemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Science, Budapest, for the XRD analyses and Erzsébet Szász for her valuable contribution.

Materials and suppliers

Balsite® (W+K), Per-Xil® 10, and Paraloid® B-67 were purchased from CTS Romania SRL, Raului, 23, 550137 Sibiu, Romania.