The image as body: reflections on language and art restoration through Neri di Bicci's Ricordanze 1453-7

Concentrating at first on the language which informs and articulates contemporary practices in art restoration, The Image as Body discusses those commissions from Neri di Bicci's shop-book that involve pre-existing religious images. In providing a cultural context for this fifteenth-century Florentine 'restoration' work, the author also advances a reevaluation of the terms of Neri di Bicci's art-historical reputation. The Image as Body layers a series of readings, broadly exploring connections between processes of history, of professional self-representation, of describing and playing out social relationships to material images.