Category: Conservation
Restoring the King Arthur tapestry
January 16 2023
Video: Met
At the Metropolitan Museum, they're restoring a series of c.1400 Netherlandish tapestries, the so-called 'Heroes' set. Some of them were once turned into curtains in the 19th Century, so they need some TLC. In the video above you can see the tapestries being cleaned, which involves hoses, and detergent. I sometimes wish we could clean paintings like that. Back in the day, I once read, they used to rub them (tapestries, not paintings) with breadcrumbs. More here.
Tiepolo's Paintings in Verolanuova are being Restored
April 10 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Two large paintings by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's, kept in the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, Verolanuova, are to be restored. Work has recently begun on bringing the artist's monumental canvases of The Sacrifice of Melchizedek and The Collection of Manna back to life. The work is being supervised by conservator Davide Dotti.
Religious Artworks Restored at the Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca
April 1 2022
Picture: Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo de la Semana Santa de Cuenca (The Museum of Holy Week) in Spain have just opened an exhibition dedicated to a set of restored religious works of art. Jewels of the Passion features five works from various parishes that have been brought back to life through a vast conservation project.
Click here for an online catalogue (in Spanish) of the exhibition, which features quite a few interesting photos during the various stages of conservation.
The show will run from 31st March 2022 until 22nd May 2022.
I think this 'before and after' of a set of three anonymous sixteenth-century panels is rather striking! If only the revealed picture was of better quality:
New 'Restoration' Scandal in France
March 29 2022
Picture: france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News has been emerging from Chatonrupt-Sommermont in the Haute-Marne, North-Eastern France, of a rather curious restoration scandal. The story revolves around a town Mayor who commissioned a retired soldier called Patrick Quercy to 'restore' a set of nineteenth-century Stations of the Cross. These rather damaged paintings had recently been rediscovered in the bell tower of an old church. Quercy's work had been featured on a regional news programme where several commentators spotted that the work was far from satisfactory (see the comparisons above). Didier Rykner of La Tribune de l'Art used words such as 'vandalism' and a 'massacre' to describe this most misguided campaign of restoration. He has also drawn attention to the vulnerable position that so many religious artworks of 'no commercial value' are placed in.
Restored Rubens to be unveiled in Cologne on Easter Monday
March 15 2022
Picture: katholisch.de
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Peter Paul Rubens's recently restored Crucifixion of Saint Peter is about to be unveiled for members of the public. The painting, which has been in the Church of Sankt Peter in Köln (Cologne) since 1642, measures 3.5 x 2.5 m and has been undergoing sensitive conservation over the past two years. This recent campaign of restoration cost the church and diocese no less than €85,000. As in olden times, the painting is set to be unshrouded on Easter Monday for the congregation gathered in the building.
Saving Ukranian Cultural Heritage & Art
March 14 2022
Video: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Alongside the horrific human suffering due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, many media outlets have also been covering the brave and heroic efforts of cultural and museum officials in saving their cultural treasures. Whole museum collections have been hidden away into safe places. Important historic buildings in cities like Lviv and Odessa have been scaffolded and covered up in hope that they will be protected against potential shelling.
From the Russian museums side of things, large institutions like the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg are demanding that all international loans are returned by the end of the month. This has particularly affected some exhibitions in Italy, it seems. The National Gallery in London will also "no longer be seeking" a Raphael from the Hermitage for their upcoming show.
The Louvre are Restoring a Poussin
March 10 2022
Picture: @MilovanCavor
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Nicolas Milovanovic, Chief Curator at the Louvre in Paris, has shared some rather interesting images on Twitter of a conservation project on the museum's The Nurture of Bacchus by Nicolas Poussin. The clean, which is due to finish soon, looks rather promising indeed. Click through the link to see more images on Nicolas's Twitter page.
Renovated Collegio Alberoni Reopens
March 9 2022
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that the newly renovated Collegio Alberoni in Piacenza, Italy, will be reopening to the public this weekend. In particular, vast interventions have been made to upgrade the apartments belonging to Cardinal Giulio Alberoni (1664–1752) who founded the college and collection of art. The most singular piece in the collection is a version of Antonello da Messina's Ecce Homo.
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Press photographs also show a rather intriguing approach to displaying Jan Provost's Madonna of the fountain and Glass with flowers within a niche:
Casa Buonarroti Conserve two Michelangelo Bas-reliefs
March 3 2022
Picture: ansa.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Florence's Casa Buonarroti have shared news of the conservation and restoration of two bas-reliefs by the young Michelangelo. The Madonna della scala (pictured) and the Battle of the Centaurs both date to the early 1490s and were recently treated to some dusting and light-cleaning by conservators. Both artworks will be redisplayed in the newly renovated marble rooms of the museum which also features brand-new LED lighting.
Musée des beaux arts de Lyon conserve and redisplay picture acquired in 1875
March 3 2022
Picture: Musée des beaux arts de Lyon via. Jean-Christophe Stuccilli
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The art historian and heritage conservation officer of the Musée des beaux arts de Lyon Jean-Christophe Stuccilli has shared news that the museum has conserved and redisplayed Sébastien-Melchior Cornu's (1804 - 1870) Augustus giving the constitution to Gaul. The work, dated to 1869, was acquired by the museum in 1875 but has never been on public display before.
Upcoming Release: Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe
March 3 2022
Picture: Routledge
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The publishers Routledge will be releasing the following book later this month. Histories of Conservation and Art History in Modern Europe features a collection of essays edited by Sven Dupré and Jenny Boulboullé.
Here's a list of the essay titles featured within:
1 Introduction: Experts in the Interbellum
Part 1 Science, Authentication and Issues of Conservation
2 "We Cannot Splash Light onto Our Palettes": The 1893 Munich Exhibition and Congress and Its Public Demand for Research on Painting Materials and Techniques
3 A. P. Laurie and the Scientific Appreciation of Art
4 Seeing Through the (Old) Masters: The Crisis of Connoisseurship and the Emergence of Radiographic Art Expertise
5 Rome 1930, the International Conference on the Scientific Analysis of Artworks and Its Legacy in Italy
Part 2 Education and Professionalisation
6 Mending, Sticking, and Repairing: Reconstructing Conservation Expertise in Archaeology in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries
7 Wissenschaft, Vocation, or Bildung?: Debating the Sites and Aims of German Art History at the End of the Nineteenth Century
8 Education in the Art and Conservation Field in German Countries
9 Experiments in a Teaching Museum: The Fogg’s "Laboratory for Art"
Part 3 Museums and Institutions
10 Omnium Gatherum to a ‘Treasury of Art and Science’: The Development of Conservation Expertise at the Ashmolean Museum
11 The (In)visibility of the Paintings Restorers of the Rijksmuseum in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
12 Gemäldekunde. German Pioneers of the ‘Science of Painting’
13 Invention as Necessity: The Salvage of Italian Frescoes During World War II
14 Expertise, Multiple Actors, and Multiple Voices
The book will be released on 15th March 2022.
Introducing the 'Viennese Salvator Mundi'
March 2 2022
Picture: KHM
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Kunsthistoriches Museum (KHM) in Vienna have shared news that it has completed a research project which has reattributed a painting to Titian. The museum embarked on the campaign in 2021 to investigate whether the following Christ with a Globe or the Viennese Salvator Mundi (as some have been calling it) could be the work of Titian during the 1520s. As is so often the case, the oil on canvas bears some old damages and rather unsympathetic overpainting (visible in the hair, nose and right eye, it seems).
X-rays have revealed that the present work was painted on top of a Virgin and Child:
The museum have started a crowdfunding campaign to have the work fully-restored in time for an exhibition in October 2022.
The National Gallery are cleaning Reynolds's Captain Robert Orme
March 2 2022
Video: The National Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have made this video regarding the conservation of Sir Joshua Reynolds's Portrait of Captain Robert Orme (1756). In particular, conservator Hayley Thomlinson explains why the artist's experimental techniques made his pictures so difficult to tricky to treat even in our modern age.
The National Trust conserve three Fathers of the Church
March 1 2022
Picture: The National Trust
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Trust have shared news of the conservation and restoration of three oil paintings of Saints, known as the Fathers of the Church. The works, which depict Pope Gregory I, Saint Jerome and Saint Augustine Bishop of Hippo, are in the collection of Chastleton House in Oxfordshire. It is believed the panel paintings date to around the time the house was built in the opening decades of the seventeenth-century.
The article linked above explains that the fourth 'father' is missing:
However, a fourth painting of Saint Ambrose, a fourth century theologian and Bishop of Milan, is missing. A magazine article in 1919 noted the four paintings as a set so while it is thought to have hung in the house until the early 20th Century, nobody knows where it is now.
“It is a mystery,” said Ruth Peters, Senior Collections and House Officer at Chastleton. “We have an idea of what it would look like as the paintings are based on - but are not an exact copy of - a set of four Flemish engravings. The last members of the family to live at Chastleton before it came into the care of the National Trust have no memory of the fourth painting. It might have been sold or given away and so could be hanging on somebody’s wall, unrecognised.”
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As a brief aside, I thought I would share this sneaky picture I took many years ago when I last visited Chastleton. It's a beautiful house filled with some interesting things. However, I could never quite understand why they decided to hang this rather fine Thomas Hudson (one of the collection's best pictures) well behind a rope off of a corridor.
The Musée d'Orsay conserve a Monet
March 1 2022
Video: Musée d'Orsay
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris have just redisplayed a recently conserved painting by Claude Monet. Femmes au jardin (1866) has experienced a hard life, especially after being damaged several times and thus was covered by old campaigns of restoration. Fortunately, the work into researching and conserving the painting has been completed, nearly all of which can be accessed through the following webpage. The work was carried out by the Center And Search Restoration Musées De France (C2RMF)
Versailles's Madame de Maintenon Conserved
February 24 2022
Picture: Palace of Versailles
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palace of Versailles have published a short article providing details concerning the recent conservation and restoration of Louis Ferdinand Elle the Elder's Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719), and her niece Françoise d'Aubigné, future Duchess of Noailles (1688).
It seems that the artist had originally intended for the portrait to be in a smaller format, as it was eventually extended on four sides to allow for a full-length painting. X-ray images have also shown that the sitter's dress had been changed from more fashionable lace attire to the austere costume that appears in the final image. The work was undertaken by the The National Centre for Research and Restoration in French Museums (C2RMF)
Art Institute of Chicago's Lawrence Mid-Clean
February 23 2022
Picture: Instagram via. @emersonbowyer
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Emerson Bowyer, Senior curator of European Painting & Sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, has shared these rather pleasing mid-clean pictures of Thomas Lawrence's Anna Maria Dashwood, later Marchioness of Ely. As you can see, Lawrence's vibrant colours really do shine when those layers of murky varnish are removed.
Here is what the picture looked like before conservation:
We'll await the finished results with great anticipation (!)
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As an aside, what I would give to see the Wallace Collection's early Lawrence in the Front State Room cleaned. The transformation would surely be most impressive.
Lincoln's Portrait Restored
February 21 2022
Picture: The Washington Post
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Washington Post have published a short article on a recently restored portrait of President Abraham Lincoln owned by the Hartley Dodge Foundation, New Jersey. The painting, completed by W.F.K. Travers in 1864 or 1865, had once been debated in Congress regarding its purchase for the Capitol. After this plan failed to materialise, the work was purchased by Rockefeller and later fell into several private collections until it was largely forgotten. Its current owners have only recently had the portrait restored and commissioned research to re-establish its provenance.
Donato Montorfano's Crucifixion undergoing Conservation
February 21 2022
Picture: finestresullarte
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Italian art website finestresullarte have published an extended article on the conservation of Donato Montorfano's (1460-1502) Crucifixion in the Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Famously, this fresco is situated opposite Leonardo's Last Supper. In fact, this large work opposite contains rather damaged portraits of Ludovico il Moro with his wife Beatrice d'Este which have been attributed to Leonardo himself. The link will also take you to many interesting pictures showing the work being undertaken on these fragile wall paintings.
Save Venice target Works by Women Artists
February 18 2022
Picture: Save Venice
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper have published an article on the conservation charity Save Venice's new initiative to raise money to conserve 30 works by Women Artists.
The idea was hatched during the restoration of a Tintoretto which is kept in the same church as a neglected picture by Giulia Lama (1681-1747) (another of Lama's works is pictured above):
“The minute [the spandrels] started to come out from all of this grime, people went, ‘Right, we know this artist. There’s work by her in the Accademia, major altarpieces… Wait a minute, why are we not paying more attention to Giulia Lama?’” recalls Tracy Cooper, a Save Venice board member and art history professor at Temple University in Philadelphia, who is leading research for the organisation’s Women Artists of Venice (WAV) programme.
Other works on the radar include paintings by the likes of Irene di Spilimbergo (who studied briefly under Titian), the 17th-century portraitist Chiara Varotari, Bernardina di Zuan Mathio, Caterina Tarabotti and Marietta Robusti.
