The Walters Art Museum: If Books Could Kill (Online)

This class is a part of the 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. 

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. 

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

Please register with an email address to receive an immediate registration confirmation with a link to join the class/event. This email will also contain the dial-in information if you wish to participate by telephone.