Making Mounts Without the Objects: Using 3D Scanning, Modeling & Printing Technologies

Art and War in the Renaissance: The Battle of Pavia Tapestries, is a traveling exhibition of tapestries and armor from The Museum of Capodimonte, Naples, Italy. It opened at the Kimbell Art Museum, and will travel on to Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and then the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Mountmakers from FAMSF were asked to design and fabricate mounts for 26 Renaissance objects, including armor elements, wheel-lock guns and gunpowder flasks. Since FAMSF is the second venue, our team would not have the objects on-hand during mount fabrication. (Yes, we made mounts without the actual objects. The mounts traveled 1,712 Miles to meet the objects in Dallas before the Kimbell team could confirm that the mounts worked with minor to no modifications.) We overcame this challenge by utilizing 3D scanning, modeling, printing & related technologies. We produced 3D and 2D models from the scans to help fabricate external contour mounts and internal insert mounts. In our presentation, we will walk you through our process and discuss the merits and challenges of each step, and how we overcame them.