A special project:
The digitization of glass objects
The National Glass Museum in Leerdam has a unique and richly varied collection of glass and crystal. The collection is comprised of so-called handicraft glass and utility glass.
Over the last couple of years, the National Glass Museum, in collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Heritage and supported by the Mondriaan Foundation, the VSB Fonds, the Prins Bernard Cultuurfonds, and the Gravin van Bylandt Stichting, has enabled Pictura to digitize its collection. In the near future the entire collection will be unlocked through the website.
Photography on Location
The enormous collection of glass objects - 7,000 in total - was photographed by Pictura using multiple photographers. This was done to ensure a constant high speed work flow. All glass objects were photographed on location, which required that the glass was cleaned beforehand. This delicate work was done by volunteers of the museum. Where possible, the objects were photographed separately, so they could also be described individually. The tableware was photographed in sets to keep the individual items together in the overview.
The glass and crystal objects were placed on the light table one by one, allowing for a small amount of reflection to better bring out the transparent objects. Everything was cropped in the same proportions, namely 4:5. This created an attractive and tranquil overview of the collection. The images can be enlarged up to A0 size using Topview.
Design and Shop Drawings
The 40,000 design and shop drawings in the museum’s archive have been digitized. The drawings have been recorded numerically so they can be reproduced one-for-one. This has created a complete overview of the work of each designer. All of this is available on the website of the National Glass Museum, including a brief description for each drawing.
