Angkor Wat Temple Rubbing

[Shayla]

This temple rubbing was made in the 1950's. The couple who brought it want minimal design,
and on one hand, I wish they'd have wanted more detail/color. But, I also like the subtlety.

The texture is lovely, and to think of those stone carvers, working so delicately.
The paper is 24 x 39 inches. Fotiou frame. Outer mat is linen.

 

[Mary Beth van der Horst]

Beautiful!
I've got a very large English bronze rubbing I'm working on at the moment. Here's hoping the threads I read were true and mountcor is a low enough temp to mount on without losing detail. I've hinge mounted one in the past, but this one isn't as concerned with being removable, and it's for a college friend so she'll forgive me if something goes wrong.

on an aside... I began today with a headache, so there will be some temple rubbing in my shop today as well.

 

[wpfay]

Nice design. More color might have put too much energy in the presentation. The balance is very good.

I did a series of 5 of the Ankor Wat rubbings that were donated by a woman who had lived in Cambodia to our local library. I think they still hang in one of the meeting rooms in the library.
They were done with Papier Mache like strips that was deformed into the carvings so the pieces had a very dimensional mature and the images were very graphic, not subtle like this one.

 

[Rick Granick]

on an aside... I began today with a headache, so there will be some temple rubbing in my shop today as well.

Good one. (Not the headache... your comment.)
Rick

 

[Shayla]

Beautiful!
I've got a very large English bronze rubbing I'm working on at the moment. Here's hoping the threads I read were true and mountcor is a low enough temp to mount on without losing detail. I've hinge mounted one in the past, but this one isn't as concerned with being removable, and it's for a college friend so she'll forgive me if something goes wrong.

on an aside... I began today with a headache, so there will be some temple rubbing in my shop today as well.

The temple rubbing was something like charcoal. Because mounting would have flattened the relief, I mulberry hinged it.
Is the English rubbing in a non-friable, or high melting, substance, without relief?

 

[Shayla]

Nice design. More color might have put too much energy in the presentation. The balance is very good.

Yes, I'd have liked to add a bit more color. But, they want very quiet framing.
Came in, asking for a single white mat, so just getting them to two layers, with cream and some warmth was an adventure.
I'm fine with single white mats, but in this case, it would have been too spare.

 

[Mary Beth van der Horst]

The temple rubbing was something like charcoal. Because mounting would have flattened the relief, I mulberry hinged it.
Is the English rubbing in a non-friable, or high melting, substance, without relief?

Yeah there's no relief to mine. It doesn't seem like it's a super soft wax either. I'm feeling pretty confident it'll be fine. I'll share a picture once I'm done with her!

 

[wpfay]

I mounted a brass rubbing, owned by me, done in the UK back when it was still allowed (1950's?) to do it on the actual brass tomb coverings. I used the reversible mounting tissue (forget the name, and it is no longer available as such) that had a lower bonding point and stuck it to a 40X60 4-ply rag mat. The rubbing was then bevel cut out by hand on the contours of the figures, and the natural paper color between the brass wax was dyed with China Black ink, as was the bevel of the cut out. It was a 3/4 scale standing figure with all the heraldry: Standing on a Gryphon, Order of the garter, Sword in its scabbard tied to his belt, and a saddle on his right shoulder (I was pretty ambitious in the day, lol).
He was a knight, Sir Thomas Boleyn, who I believe was the father of Anne. I also have a rubbing of the footstone (it has all the info on the guy), but it would have made the piece too big to fit our beach cottage's walls.

 

[Shayla]

I mounted a brass rubbing, owned by me, done in the UK back when it was still allowed (1950's?) to do it on the actual brass tomb coverings. I used the reversible mounting tissue (forget the name, and it is no longer available as such) that had a lower bonding point and stuck it to a 40X60 4-ply rag mat. The rubbing was then bevel cut out by hand on the contours of the figures, and the natural paper color between the brass wax was dyed with China Black ink, as was the bevel of the cut out. It was a 3/4 scale standing figure with all the heraldry: Standing on a Gryphon, Order of the garter, Sword in its scabbard tied to his belt, and a saddle on his right shoulder (I was pretty ambitious in the day, lol).
He was a knight, Sir Thomas Boleyn, who I believe was the father of Anne. I also have a rubbing of the footstone (it has all the info on the guy), but it would have made the piece too big to fit our beach cottage's walls.

Those sound amazing! This one was done in the 1950's, by friends of his parents. They were US State Department employees, and he thinks they might have been in Cambodia as spies.
So, either they were spies, or they weren't, but I'm glad they saved a memory.

 

[glamorsidhe]

This is not a comment on any of the mattings/framings of the various Angkor Wat temple rubbings but rather about the tourists who routinely & unthinkingly make such rubbings. In the US (unsure about Canada), Civil War gravestones, both Confederate & Union, are protected from undue rubbings-damage by tourists who resort to such "souvenir" takings, hence the practice is verboten. Compare the time-frame of these gravestones to the 12th century CE Khmer stonework. Ergo this addendum.

All of the rubbings' mattings/framings are, nevertheless, visually superbly done.

 

[Shayla]

This is not a comment on any of the mattings/framings of the various Angkor Wat temple rubbings but rather about the tourists who routinely & unthinkingly make such rubbings. In the US (unsure about Canada), Civil War gravestones, both Confederate & Union, are protected from undue rubbings-damage by tourists who resort to such "souvenir" takings, hence the practice is verboten. Compare the time-frame of these gravestones to the 12th century CE Khmer stonework. Ergo this addendum.

All of the rubbings' mattings/framings are, nevertheless, visually superbly done.

Yes. Our customer said, 'There's no way this could be done now.'

 

[Waveney Jenkins]

This is not a comment on any of the mattings/framings of the various Angkor Wat temple rubbings but rather about the tourists who routinely & unthinkingly make such rubbings. In the US (unsure about Canada), Civil War gravestones, both Confederate & Union, are protected from undue rubbings-damage by tourists who resort to such "souvenir" takings, hence the practice is verboten. Compare the time-frame of these gravestones to the 12th century CE Khmer stonework. Ergo this addendum.

All of the rubbings' mattings/framings are, nevertheless, visually superbly done.

I believe - but not sure of present day status - but in the late 1960s it became illegal to take rubbings directly from the carvings of the temples at Siem Reap (Angkor etc). I think wax or wooden replicas were made, and rubbings were taken from these for tourists to buy... they are less subtle.

 

[wpfay]

The same in the UK from what I understand.
I have some rubbings from the original brasses that were done by my godparents in the late 1950s- early 1960s when they were stationed there with the USAF/RAF.