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Video | Factum Foundation take 3D scan of Velázquez classic

We are thrilled to share a film that documents the February visit of a team from Factum Foundation who brought their state-of-the-art tech to the Scottish National Gallery to carry out the high-resolution digitisation in 3D and colour of Diego Velázquez’ An Old Woman Cooking Eggs.

The team pictured scanning in the Scottish National Gallery. Image: Gabriel Scarpa, Factum Foundation

The team travelled to Edinburgh to produce an ‘exact’ facsimile that will be displayed in the new Casa Natal de Velázquez which is being opened in the Seville house the artist lived in for the first 23 years of his life.

The facsimile of this and other key paintings by Velázquez will be made at Factum Arte’s Madrid workshops using the data recorded and employing new technologies combined with traditional artistic and craft techniques.

The data captured will also provide vital documentation about the current conservation state of the works.

Factum Foundation at the Scottish National Gallery

Diego Velázquez An Old Woman Cooking Eggs 1618

Painted between 1618 and 1623, An Old Woman Cooking Eggs is considered one of the most emblematic of the works painted while he lived in his hometown.

The digitisation marks the first phase of a wider collaboration between Factum Foundation and Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica that will culminate in the display and exhibitions project at the Casa Natal de Velázquez, projected to open in 2021.

Factum have provided further information about the technology being used in this resource.

The scanning underway in the Scottish National Gallery. Image: Gabriel Scarpa, Factum Foundation
The scanning underway in the Scottish National Gallery. Image: Gabriel Scarpa, Factum Foundation

An Old Woman Cooking Eggs

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I’m Letting Velázquez: A Film Poem by Stav Poleg

Poet Stav Poleg's poem and film poem I'm Letting Velázquez, a response to Diego Velázquez’s An Old Woman Cooking Eggs, commissioned by Carcanet Press and the PN Review.