Category: Conservation
Restoration Reveals 'Erased Boy'
November 1 2021
Picture: theadvertiser.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I've spotted this rather interesting article recently published on eu.theadvertiser.com regarding the restoration of a painting sold in 2005 by the New Orleans Museum of Art.
The c.1837 painting depicting Bélizaire and the Frey Children, attributed to Jacques Guillame Lucien Amans (1801-1888), was donated by descendants of the Frey family to the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1972. It was kept in storage until it was sold by the museum in 2005. The work was then purchased by an antique dealer and was subsequently cleaned.
Restoration revealed that a black house servant had been painted over and 'erased' from the painting. Recent undertaken with Katy Morlas Shannon, the head of history and interpretation at the Evergreen Plantation in Louisiana, has finally managed to piece together the history of this young boy.
According to the article:
The boy who was nearly erased has a name: Bélizaire.
He was 15 and a house servant in the Frey household. He was the only child in the painting to live on into adulthood.
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The portrait of the four children now in Simien’s collection was never shown at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The painting was in very poor condition and would have required restoration, cleaning, and repair, said Lisa Rotondo-McCord, NOMA’s Deputy Director for Curatorial Affairs. There is no record of a request from scholars or a conservator to view the painting, which might have prompted the museum to conduct further research or restoration of the painting, she said.
The museum had hoped to locate the painting several years after it was sold to include it in a 2019 exhibit called “Inventing Acadia” curated by Katie Pfohl, which featured 19th century Louisiana landscape paintings. Simien at the time was also trying to locate the painting, which by that point had been restored to its original form.
Hogarth's Repainting to Halt Productions of Fakes
November 1 2021
Picture: The Sunday Times
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Sunday Times published a story yesterday on new research which shows how William Hogarth often repainted his famous pictures in order to halt the production of unofficial knock-off prints.
According to the article:
X-rays and infrared scans of Hogarth’s best-known works, A Rake’s Progress, show he changed some of the eight paintings in the series after completion, when knock-off prints started appearing before he had published his own.
After creating his originals, Hogarth would have smaller engravings made to be printed and sold. Plagiarism was rife, however, and pirate copies of his previous work, A Harlot’s Progress, had appeared a little over a week after prints had been delivered to his subscribers.
This new research will appear in the forthcoming Tate exhibition Hogarth and Europe which opens on 3rd November 2021.
National Gallery of Ireland Unveils Conserved Lavinia Fontana
October 31 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin have unveiled Lavinia Fontana's recently restored The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon. The work has reappeared after an 18-month conservation and research project funded in-part by The Bank of America. The removal of old varnish has revealed several interesting and overlooked details, including an inscription and 1599 date painted onto the base of a clock.
Furthermore, the work will be included in the gallery's forthcoming exhibition entitled Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker which is set to open in May 2023.
Update - I would recommend heading over to the gallery's YouTube Channel where they have uploaded many fascinating videos featuring the conservation of the painting.
The National Gallery cleans a Frans Hals
October 30 2021
Video: National Gallery London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have published a rather satisfying video showing the conservation of a Portrait of a Lady by Frans Hals. The video features a full explanation presented by conservator Paul Ackroyd.
I'd also recommend this earlier published video giving a 'first look' at Thomas Lawrence's The Red Boy, a painting acquired by the gallery earlier in the year.
Cleaning Fragonard's The Swing
October 30 2021
Picture: TAN
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Art Newspaper have published an article on the ongoing conservation treatment of Fragonard's The Swing. This iconic painting from The Wallace Collection in London has been treated by the restorer Martin Wyld, former Director of Conservation at the National Gallery in London.
It will be back on display in the museum on 3rd November 2021 and is set to be featured within a future Fragonard exhibition held by the institution (TBA).
Alcaraz Restoration Reveals Original Sixteenth Century Paintings
October 29 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Spain that a thorough restoration of an altarpiece has revealed the original paintings by Juan de Borgoña (1470-1535). The eight panels, preserved in the Church of la Santísima Trinidad in Alcaraz, Spain, had been practically hidden under crude overpaint and gilding from later centuries. It had been assumed by some scholars that the original paintings had been lost.
Conservation in Action at the Queen's House Greenwich
October 26 2021
Picture: Royal Museums Greenwich
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Museums Greenwich have opened a new live exhibit entitled Conservation in Action. Visitors to the Queen's House in Greenwich will have the opportunity to watch conservators working on A Royal Visit to the Fleet in the Thames Estuary by Willem van de Velde the Younger. The painting has not been on display in recent years due to its condition.
Tickets are free but must be booked in advanced. The live exhibit will run until 3rd December 2021.
XXL Mattia Preti Removed from Maltese Church for Restoration
October 25 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Malta that a large painting by Mattia Preti (1613-1699) has been removed from the Żurrieq’s Parish Church in preparation for conservation. Curiously, the restoration of Pretti's Saints Roque, Blaise, Dominic and Nicholas of Tolentino interceding for the plague stricken will be financed by the Malta Airport Foundation. The work, under the leadership of conservator Anthony Spagnol, will take until the third quarter of 2022 to complete.
Half-cleaned Vasari on Display at Palazzo Barberini
October 22 2021
Picture: @BarberiniCorsin
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Palazzo Barberini in Rome have shared an interesting image on Twitter of a half-cleaned painting on display within their galleries. The Allegory of the Immaculate Conception by Giogio Vasari is in the progress of being cleaned. The various stages of dirt removal and varnishing are now very obvious to the eye.
The work will be on display for a few weeks until it heads back for conservation until is completion in April 2022.
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I was wondering whether this was a brilliant idea or not. Obviously, it is a wonderful chance to show the public the various stages of conservation treatment. However, it is also somewhat visually frustrating to see something not quite there. The equivalent would be displaying a half-cleaned car in a forecourt, perhaps. Maybe readers of AHN have some interesting opinions on the matter.
Update - A reader has been in touch to remind me of the current exhibition Facelifts & Make-overs at the Mauritshuis. Amongst presenting a survey of recent conservation projects the exhibition also features an 'in-progress' conserved picture by Pieter de Hooch. Well worth visiting by the looks of it!
Update 2 - A reader has forwarded a photograph of a detail of the aforementioned Vasari. As you can see, the conservators have used white dashes to indicate the cleaned areas:
Restoration of Nasher Museum 'Wright of Derby'
October 21 2021
Video: Nasher Museum of Art
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's a recent video made by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, North Carolina, describing the restoration of a painting Attributed to Joseph Wright of Derby. The process involved in its restoration and research is featured in a small exhibition at the museum entitled Off the Map: The Provenance of a Painting which runs until 9th January 2022.
Results from Conservation and Treatment of the Ghent Altarpiece
October 21 2021
Video: KIK-IRPA
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Here's an interesting video giving some further details about discoveries made during the conservation and treatment of Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece. Amongst the research conducted was identifying the hand and work of Hubert van Eyck.
Here's a link from CODART which gives more details of the conservation and the recently published book on the subject.
Bristol Museum Conserves Jordaens Nativity
October 19 2021
Picture: Bristol Museum & Art Gallery
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news on Twitter that the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery will soon be redisplaying their newly conserved Nativity by Jacob Jordaens. The painting has undergone restoration over the past months, part of which has been described in this blog on their website. The painting will also be featured within the imminent second edition of the Jordaens Van Dyck Panel Paintings Project (JVDPPP) journal.
Conservation Denudes Christ Child
October 19 2021
Picture: finestresullarte.info
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News from Italy that a painting of The Holy Family by Giuseppe Cesari (1568–1640), also called Cavaliere d'Arpino, has been conserved. The painting, dated to roughly 1627, is owned by the Museum of the Cathedral of Ferrara. It was picked for restoration due to a public vote promoted by the Italian group Coop Alleanza 3.0.
The removal of overpaint has revealed that pillow and flash of white cloth were added to the painting at some point during the eighteenth century. It is believed that this was due to 'changing tastes'.
'AI' Recreates Image Underneath Picasso
October 12 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Times reported at the weekend of news that scientists at University College London have managed to recreate a picture painted over by Picasso. The Blind Man's Meal, dating to 1903 and now kept at the MET in New York, had long been known to have been painted over an unfinished nude.
According to the article:
Bourached and Cann trained an algorithm to simulate how the original painting looked by analysing Picasso’s brush strokes in other paintings.
“It’s very exciting to see a work that’s been locked up,” Cann told the Sunday Telegraph. “It’s quite eerie seeing the brushstrokes, colour and the way in which light reflects off the work. It’s a very beautiful piece.
“I hope Picasso would be happy in knowing the treasure he’s hidden for future generations is finally being revealed, 48 years after his death and 118 years after the painting was concealed. I also hope the woman within the portrait would be happy in knowing that she hadn’t been erased from history and that her beauty was finally being revealed in the 21st century.”
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Indeed, I wonder what Picasso would have made of this image...
MET Conserve Cosway's Mrs. Dalrymple
October 6 2021
Picture: MET
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Conservators of The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York have recently restored Richard Cosway's portrait of Marianne Dorothy Harland (1759–1785), Later Mrs. William Dalrymple.
According to the museum's catalogue note:
When this portrait was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1779, an art critic decried Cosway’s “painful and minute attention to little Circumstances,” which gave his work “a coxcomical and ridiculous air.” Indeed, the painting does reveal Cosway’s minute attention to the furnishing of a fashionable, feminine interior, emphasizing such features as the dressing table bearing a pincushion, scent bottles, and powder puff.
Here is what the picture looked like before conservation treatment:
Did Rubens Paint This? 'AI' Says No
September 27 2021
Picture: The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian published a rather bizarre story yesterday regarding claims made by a Swiss company called AI Recognition that AI software has decided that Rubens did not paint The National Gallery's Samson and Delilah (pictured). The claims were brought forward by the 'scientist co-founder' Dr Carina Popovici who says that their complex algorithm has decided with a 91.78% accuracy that Rubens did not paint the picture.
The article has quoted the art historian Dr Katarzyna Krzyżagórska-Pisarek who has also expressed doubts about the work:
The significance of this new AI method of authentication is potentially groundbreaking. Devoid of human subjectivity, emotion and commercial interests, the software is coldly objective and scientifically accurate. Many questionable works were attributed to Rubens at the beginning of the 20th century… There is today a distinct need for more reliable methods of connoisseurship.
As Bendor has pointed out on Twitter, this story shows that "computers still don't understand how artists worked. And probably never will".
If readers would like to read a serious text explaining the authorship to Rubens, then here's the National Gallery's 1983 Technical Bulletin which provides all the details you'll need.
Constable's 'Nip and Tuck' Revealed
September 24 2021
Picture: The Guardian
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian published an interesting story last weekend regarding the recent conservation and research of a reidentified portrait by John Constable. Scholars Anne Lyles and Sarah Cove have unravelled the interesting changes the artist made on the portrait of his neighbour Emily Treslove. This included changing the sitter's facial features after it was considered there was 'scarcely any resemblance'.
Conservator Sarah Cove is quoted:
“The face is very well painted. I discovered during the technical examination that it has actually been partially repainted. Her cheeks and nose have been made slimmer and it looks as if he’s slightly painted out a double chin. Also, the hairstyle has been changed. Perhaps she thought that she looked a bit porky when it was done first time round. I just think that’s hilarious.”
Armenian Portraits Rehung at Windsor Castle
September 23 2021
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Collection Trust have shared news that two recently conserved portraits by 17th-century Armenian artist Marcos have been rehung in the King's Dining Room at Windsor Castle. The portraits were last recorded as hanging there during the 1870s.
According to the post:
The striking portraits depict a member of the military aristocracy and an unmarried woman from New Julfa, the Armenian district of Isfahan, which was the cosmopolitan capital of Persia in the 17th century. Paintings of this style are known to have hung in the houses of Isfahan’s wealthy merchant classes.
The figures are dressed in luxurious fabrics including Persian silks, which the Armenians of Isfahan famously traded across the globe. Both portraits include European details, such as a Venetian wine glass, a German clock and Dutch flowers, signifying affluence through access to luxury international commodities.
Murillo Exhibition at the Prado
September 23 2021
Video: Museo del Prado
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museo del Prado in Madrid opened their latest exhibition this week entitled Murillo’s The Prodigal Son and the art of narrative in Andalusian Baroque painting. Notably, the exhibition includes recently conserved works on loan from the National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin.
According to their website:
During the central decades of the 17th century a type of painting was produced in Andalusia that was notably representative of both the high levels achieved by the principal painters of the region and the expectations and tastes of one of the most active sectors of their clientele. These are works structured as series, most of medium size and commissioned by private individuals for domestic interiors or private oratories. They depict a “story” taken from the Bible or the hagiographies, either in the form of an individual’s life story recounted in greater or lesser detail, or the different stages within one biographical episode. The format allowed artists to display not only their use of compositional devices but also their skills as narrators of sequential episodes.
The content of the series and the way the artists chose to depict the subjects often reflect the contemporary world of the individuals who commissioned them, their codes and aspirations, while also providing us with an insight into part of their material culture.
With the aim of learning more about these works and structured around the series of six, recently restored canvases of Murillo’s “Prodigal Son” series, generously loaned by the National Gallery of Dublin, the exhibition includes the four paintings in the collection of the Prado associated with that series by Murillo; the “Story of Joseph” series by Antonio del Castillo, which has survived complete; and most of the paintings from the series on “The Life of Saint Ambrose” by Juan de Valdés Leal. A comparison between these works by three of the leading names in Andalusian Baroque painting reveals both affinities and differences with regard to technique, style and approach to narrative.
The show will run until 23rd January 2022.
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It is a little obvious that the poor marketing department of the museum didn't have much money to spend on this video Still, it does the job I suppose!
Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans Renovate XIXe Galleries
September 23 2021
Picture: @MbaOrleans
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orléans have recently reopened their newly refurbished nineteenth-century galleries. The newly revamped rooms contain 350 works of art spanning from 1815 - 1870 covering themes from the Italian countryside to the Paris Salon in the age of Romanticism during the Second Empire. The displays also draw heavily from the workshop collection of the painter Léon Cogniet.
