William BurgesThe Great Bookcase

Gothic Revival1862 International Exhibition

Crafted between 1859 and 1862 by the architect William Burges and a team of 13 artists, the Great Bookcase is a remarkable piece of Gothic Revival painted furniture designed to hold Burges's personal book collection. In 1862, the Bookcase was used as the centrepiece of the Medieval Court at the International Exhibition of London, evoking an era where painting colours were mostly prepared within the artist's workshops, following secret recipes and procedures.

During the Middle Ages, pigments were primarily obtained from natural sources like plants or minerals. For instance, an intense red colour was extracted from the root of the plant Rubia tinctorum, and a precious, deep blue pigment known as ultramarine blue was obtained from the stone lapis lazuli. Only a few colours, such as Verdigris (obtained by the corrosion of copper), were synthetically prepared by mixing and cooking different ingredients. The nineteenth-century Industrial Revolution marked a significant shift in colour manufacture, leading to the rapid development and mass production of synthetic pigments and dyes. This era saw the introduction of numerous new colours, broadening the artistic palette considerably.

Burges and his team started painting the Bookcase during a period of increasing enthusiasm for the new chromatic possibilities that the industrial colour manufacture had introduced. At the same time, the nineteenth century was characterised by a keen interest in the past, as evidenced by the re-introduction of medieval iconographical models across art and architecture. Furthermore, the material culture of historical arts and crafts started being systematically investigated, and books such as Charles Eastlake’s Materials for a History of Oil Painting (1847), and Mary Merrifield’s Original Treatises on the Art of Painting (1849) started circulating. Burges was deeply engaged with medieval material culture, owning copies of the medieval treatises by Theophilus and Cennino Cennini.

The recent analysis of the pigments used on the Bookcase revealed it was mostly painted with 19th-century pigments, as emerald green, chromium-based greens, Prussian and cobalt blues, lemon and chrome yellow dominate its surface. This shows that, despite the medieval influence of its design, the artists deliberately employed new synthetic pigments that were introduced thanks to industrial progress.

However, the analysis revealed as well that the Bookcase was often repainted, with some of the re-work happening after a structural collapse in 1878. At this time, Burges must have re-painted all the golden and blue backgrounds as we now see them across the painted panels of the Bookcase.

The in-depth investigation of a small blue paint flake revealed that the blue colour is made up of Prussian blue and a few tiny particles of ultramarine blue. From his studies, Burges would have certainly been aware that ultramarine blue was the most precious medieval pigment, worth more than gold at that time. Since it is reported that industrial colour manufacturers often used Prussian blue to adulterate ultramarine and deceive buyers, it is likely that Burges intentionally attempted to use a medieval-inspired pigment when reworking the Bookcase.

Therefore, the Bookcase's materials represent a blend of past and present, reflecting the scientific and technological advancements of the 19th century while paying homage to medieval colours, and encapsulating the spirit of nineteenth-century culture.