Author: National Museum of Ethnology. Editors: Naoko Sonoda, Claude Laroque, Jeong Hye-young, Chen Gang. Size: 18.2 x 25.7 (cm). Quantity: 132 (pages). Language: English. Publisher: National Museum of Ethnology; Senri Expo Park, Suita, Osaka, Japan. Year: 2013.
The international workshop “Research on Asian Papers” was held on 21 October 2011 at the Institut National du Patrimoine (INP) in Paris, France. The workshop was organized by the Centre de Recherche sur la Conservation des Collections (CRCC; France) in collaboration with the National Museum of Ethnology (Japan), the National Research Institute of Cultural Heritage (Korea), and the Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, Fudan University (China).
The workshop was a result of some projects carried out by CRCC and the above-listed institutions. These projects aimed to promote a better understanding by western researchers of papermaking materials and techniques in China, Japan and Korea.
Papermaking appeared in China more than two millennia ago and is an industry that has had lasting consequences on the evolution of societies. Preparation methods and their historical evolution in Europe and North America have been well studied by western researchers but not in Asia. Papers from the Far East to Europe were used in the 17th century by artists such as Rembrandt and were appreciated for their color and texture, but they are currently poorly identified by curators of western collections.
The establishment of a database of materials in the form of a directory of fibers, vocabulary, and photographs depicting the tools and the current patterns of raw materials, all of which would be placed in a historical development context, would provide an excellent tool to identify Asian papers. In addition, the development of a simple but rigorous laboratory protocol specifying the basic elements of paper identification would also prove useful in identifying paper. That was the reason that the publication “Research on Paper and Papermaking” has grown out. For this publication, the oral presentations that were presented in the workshop have been revised and reviewed. The presentations have been grouped into the three following sections:
Section I: New Possibilities for the Evaluation of Paper Deterioration
Section II: Conservation and History of Ancient Papers
Section III: Papermaking Materials and Techniques
The publication is now available at the Library of The Vietnam National Museum of History (No. 25 Tong Dan Street, Hoan Kiem District, Hanoi). All readers are welcome!
Mai An