The Walters Art Museum: If Books Could Kill

This class is a part of the HCLS' Museum@The Library series.

The rich, jewel-like colors of manuscript illuminations can be dazzling—and dangerous. For centuries, highly toxic materials such as lead, arsenic, and mercury were used by scribes, artists, and bookbinders to create handmade books and to illuminate their pages. If Books Could Kill casts light on the hidden dangers of manuscripts within the Walters’ rich collection and reveals the delicate science behind recognizing those toxic materials and handling them safely today.

This unique manuscript exhibition presents 24 rarely displayed examples of toxic books and materials from around the globe while delving into the human stories behind the manuscripts. It also explores the scientific processes used by the Walters’ Conservation Scientist to test the books and the methods used by the Walters’ Head of Books and Paper Conservation to safely handle and preserve these beautiful but dangerous treasures.

This virtual tour is presented by Lynley Anne Herbert, the curator of this incredible exhibit and Dr. Annette S. Ortiz Miranda, the conservation scientist at The Walters Art Museum. 

Lynley Anne Herbert is the Robert and Nancy Hall Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. As curator of a collection containing nearly 1,000 manuscripts and 3,500 rare printed books spanning time and place, her research and exhibition projects have ranged from the twelfth-century St. Francis Missal, to a 19th-century prayerbook woven out of silk, and a unique fourteenth-century lace-cut Book of Hours.  In addition to researching and displaying the existing collection, she has also worked to grow it, helping acquire new books such as a seventeenth-century illuminated Lutheran treatise, a woman’s illuminated Neogothic Missal, Spanish Colonial books printed by women, confession manuscripts created and used by Deaf students in 19th century Netherlands, and most recently, a group of 19th-centurty embossed books for the blind. 

Dr. Annette S. Ortiz Miranda is the conservation scientist at The Walters Art Museum, where she leads the Museum's lab for scientific analysis. Before joining the Walters, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Northwestern University's Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts in Chicago and as a conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Denmark (SMK). Her research interests include identifying and characterizing artists' materials and techniques, and the understanding of their degradation patterns. Beyond her work at the Walters, Annette is part of the Board of Governors of the Centro de Conservación y Restauración de Puerto Rico (CENCOR), the elected Assistance Chair of the Research and Technical Studies (RaTS) group of the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) and part of the leadership of the ACerS: Art, Archaeology & Conservation Science group.

Credit: Mors (Death), Confession Book of a Deaf Student

Carel (Flemish), Belgium (Kortrijk?), ca. 1819

Watercolor and ink on paper, Museum purchase with funds provided by the W. Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund, 2023, acc. no. W.962, fol. 43r

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