Conservation of Illuminated Manuscripts at The Fitzwilliam Museum, Icon Internship supported by the National Manuscripts Conservation Trust

12 month Internship - July 2013 to June 2014

Venue: The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Supervisor: Kristine Rose, ACR, Conservator of Manuscripts and Printed Books (Assistant Keeper)

Educational Stipend of: £16,000 pa pro- rata

Copyright (C) The Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, UK

The Fitzwilliam Museum holds one of the finest museum collections of illuminated manuscripts in the world, second only to that of the Vatican Museum. As part of this corpus, the Museum preserves one of the largest and most important collections of fragments from medieval manuscripts in existence. It comprises 500 leaves, full-page miniatures and cuttings. They date from the 11th to the 16th c. and cover an area stretching from Jerusalem to England and from Italy to the Netherlands. They represent devotional, liturgical, scientific and literary texts, and works by leading medieval and Renaissance artists. The material includes private collections formed in the 19th c. as examples of a 'lost art' (i.e. medieval painting).

The successful candidate will work under the supervision of the Museum’s Conservator of Manuscripts and Printed Books (Assistant Keeper) and will be involved in every aspect of work in the busy Conservation studio. The interventive conservation of manuscript fragments will form the central component of the internship. The intern will be encouraged to take initiative and responsibility for the conservation of individual objects. The collection requires essential conservation work, such as humidification, parchment repair, remounting and re-housing. Approximately 80 of the fragments will require sustained interventive conservation offering the role holder the opportunity to develop and enhance their skills in the consolidation of pigments and the repair of damaged substrates.

The intern’s work will also contribute to other major projects in the Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books: in particular preparations for the Museum’s bicentenary exhibition in 2016, and the research project MINIARE (www.miniare.org), which focuses on the non-invasive pigment analysis of illuminated manuscripts and involves collaboration with scientists, art historians and conservators in Cambridge as well as at academic and art institutions nationally and internationally.

The intern will develop an understanding of complex materials that present challenging conservation issues. There will be opportunities to present work to colleagues, students and the public.

The Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816, holds the art collections of the University of Cambridge. The Museum cares for more than 500,000 objects of national and international importance across five curatorial departments: Paintings, Drawings and Prints, Applied Arts, Antiquities, Coins and Medals, and Manuscripts and Printed Books.  The Hamilton Kerr Institute at Whittlesford is a department of the Museum, specialising in the conservation of paintings and the training of paintings conservators. The Museum conservators and the staff and students of the Hamilton Kerr Institute together make up the Fitzwilliam’s Conservation Division. In addition to working on material in the Department of Manuscripts and Printed Books, the intern will be involved with other conservators in aspects of the Museum’s collection care programme.

A recent, recognised qualification in book conservation is essential for this internship. Experience with manuscript, book and archival material as part of that qualification or, through work experience to an equivalent level of understanding and practice, is desirable.

Please apply using the application form on the Icon website only.

Closing date for applications 2 June, interviews will be held on the 26 or 27 June 2013