| Summary: | The painted and coated “starched cloth” technique seems to have been used since the XVIthcentury, in Italy. Today this practice has been forgotten and there is very little research made on the subject. To create realism, lightness, and gain time and means it was used to reproduce draperies. Shaped and painted works with finished cloth were made to reproduce scenes, some of which were theatrical with painted wooden figures or mannequins playing major roles associated with these painted canvases. The subject of research is an “entombment", kept in St Marie d'Espira de Conflent’s church. It is made up of seven characters dressed in "starched cloth" and staged in a coated and painted canopy. This assemblage is subject to humidity problems in the church and due to much shipping and handling it is now in an alarming state of conservation. This is a technique that still conceals many mysteries. This study tries to clarify some of them.
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