Category: Conservation
To clean or not to clean?
January 6 2012
Picture: Louvre
Here's a belated notice about the row in France over the cleaning of Leonardo's Virgin and Child with St Anne [Louvre]. I hadn't commented on it till now largely because there seem to be few tangible facts - and certainly no images of the cleaned work. But essentially it seems someone has resigned from the Louvre's conservation board in a huff, saying the picture has been over-cleaned. Predictably, it is all the fault of Les Anglais. From The Guardian:
The Louvre source said that Keith and Syson [of the National Gallery, London] were particularly keen on this restoration: "The English were very pushing, saying they know Leonardo is extremely delicate but 'we can move without any danger to the work'. There was a row a year ago about solvents because they said they were safe and Bergeon Langle said they're not safe. It took a long time before the committee really had explanations on the chemicals used on the picture. Details were asked for [by the critics on the committee], but didn't come for months …
"There are people who are very much for bright hues and strong cleaning. Those people are in charge."
For what it's worth, Leonardo was quite keen on bright hues too. Anyway, we can make no judgement till we see the cleaned work. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this super high-resolution image of the picture before cleaning, to which I was alerted by the ever-invaluable Three Pipe Problem. He has even spotted what appear to be a couple of finger-prints in the top left of the painting. Are they Leonardo's? Who knows - but it'll be interesting to see if they are still there in the cleaned painting...
Vandal of the week
January 5 2012
Picture: Denver Post
This is Carmen Tisch, who, according to the Denver Post:
[when] apparently drunk, leaned against an iconic Clyfford Still painting worth more than $30 million last week, punched it, slid down it and urinated on herself, according to a criminal case filed against Carmen Lucette Tisch.
"It doesn't appear she urinated on the painting or that the urine damaged it, so she's not being charged with that," Lynn Kimbrough, a spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney's office, said Wednesday. "You have to wonder where her friends were."
Tisch is being charged with criminal mischief in the incident that happened at the Clyf ford Still Museum at 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 29. Damage to the painting — "1957-J-No. 2." — is estimated at $10,000. [...]
Tisch allegedly committed the offense with her pants pulled down, according to the police report, and struck the painting repeatedly with her fist.
Nice.
Newly found Rubens for sale at Sotheby's New York
December 23 2011
Picture: Sotheby's
Hats off to Sotheby's New York for amassing one of the most impressive line ups of Old Masters I've seen at auction for a long time. Available for you to buy on January 26th are works by Guardi, Cranach, Van Dyck, Canaletto, Tintoretto, and Fra Bartolomeo. It seems consignors are taking up the opportunities of the growing momentum behind Old Masters sales. It'll be insteresting to see how well things sell - I expect strong prices.
A highlight of the sale will be the above newly discovered study by Rubens for The Adoration of the Magi, estimated at $2-3m. It surfaced last year at Koller auction in Switzerland, where it was catalogued as 'Workshop of Rubens', and sold for CHF 140,000. There, the attribution was presumably complicated by the existence of another study of the same subject by Rubens, and some rather awkward passages. Some of these, it transpires, were the result of later over-paint, and have been removed. You can zoom in on the Koller picture and play spot the difference. Full details here.
Wedgwood museum - a rescue emerges (via Twitter)?
December 22 2011
Picture: lgfl.org.uk
John Caudwell, the founder of Phones4U, has said on Twitter that he would be prepared to buy the Wedgwood museum's collection to prevent its being broken up.* Good for him. He said:
I passionately believe that the collection should remain intact and in place, and available for public viewing. If the Trustees don’t find any other way of solving the issue, then I will attempt to buy the entire collection and keep it n situ for the foreseeable future, and continue with public access. This would be subject, of course, to the outcome of any discussions with Administrators, and input of the Trustees.
No numbers have been mentioned yet as to how much it would cost him to buy the collection. The pension pot hole is £134m. Maybe (but I don't know) the collection is worth more than this (the paintings alone are worth a handy sum), so perhaps not all of it needs to be sold off.
* as I learnt via Twitter's antiques king, Steven Moore.
Hepworth theft
December 22 2011
Picture: AFP
A curious article in The Guardian today from Zoe Williams, who, it seems, struggled when her editor said 'give me 800 words on what the Hepworth theft means'. She thinks it points to a wider malaise in society, and blames, in part, the free market:
When you throw someone into the mix who doesn't care that a statue's true value is £500,000, and cares still less about its emotional value to the community, and will trash all that for £1,500, that person has a lot of power. It's caring that makes you weak.
The reason this is such a blow at this peculiar time is that the free market – the fundamental understanding of society where we exchange time for money and money for stuff and everybody wins – isn't working out. There is a full spectrum of explanations for the failure. On the right, it's because governments interfered, over-regulated, overdid the handouts and overspent. On the left, it's because government privatised, outsourced, didn't regulate, and created a corporate plutocracy by failing to protect wages, grouting the gaps with benefits and ultimately subsidising super-profits. There are centrist arguments that blame the legerdemain of financial instruments – just one giant, apolitical "oops".
Sadly, people have been stealing and vandalising art since the year dot, and will continue to do so. Probably the same section of society that does not care whether something is beautiful or historically important is the same as that which cannot empathise with their fellow man. Call it cultural pyschopathy. It has taken many forms throughout history; one is iconoclasm.
Meanwhile, a reader writes with a further suggestion on how to deal with the current problem of melting sculptures for scrap:
Re your point about scrap metal thieves, I agree entirely with everything you write. Here's one additional point, though, not least because you clearly have plenty of experience of the policy world, and the importance of framing these things properly from the start.
The theft of scrap metal or indeed 'architectural salvage' items from a listed property - something which, perforce, would include not only lead from church roofs, but also lots of things which do end up stolen and sold - e.g. pews, lecterns, statues, light fixtures, door handles, sinks, fire surrounds, you name it - ought to be considered an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing in criminal court. This is both (a) easily defined and (b) covers a lot of serious problems currently afflicting heritage properties, both ecclesiastical and secular, at least some of these involving what might reasonably be regarded as works of art.
Sounds eminently sensible to me.
Wedgwood museum collection will be sold
December 19 2011
Picture: Wedgwood Museum
The incomparable Wedgwood Museum, the country's pre-eminent pottery museum, will now almost certainly be closed down and its collection sold off. The High Court has ruled that the collection is an asset that effectively belongs to the Wedgwood company pension fund, which has a £134 million deficit.
The collection was never intended to be used as an asset this way. But a balls-up when drafting the original legal framework for the museum meant that the collection would potentially be at risk if the Wedgwood company went bust, which it did in 2009. The whole situation might have been avoided if someone had hired a good lawyer at the time.
It's not just pottery that will be sold. The museum has a fine collection of paintings, including a group portrait of the Wedgwood family by George Stubbs.
British art destroyed in Tehran - another failure by the GAC?
December 3 2011
Pictures: ITV
It seems my hope that our art at the British embassy in Tehran could be protected was in vain. The pictures, on loan from the Government Art Collection (GAC), have been destroyed by a mob of rampaging Iranian pillocks. A portrait of Queen Victoria by George Hayter (above), and a portrait of Edward VII after George Fildes (below), have been damaged beyond repair (unless someone can find the missing fragments). The Hayter would have been worth anything between £50,000 - £100,000, depending on which of the versions it was. We do not know the fate of the much more valuable eighteenth century Persian portrait of Fath 'Ali Shah.
After the damage to British embassies in both Damascus and Tripoli, where several works of art were destroyed, I suggested that:
There should be a policy in place to remove the art long before there's any chance of trouble.
The threat to these works on loan from the GAC in Tehran was entirely predictable. It's a shame the GAC, who have a woeful track record of looking after their art, did nothing to prevent it. Shouldn't there be a policy of replacing valuable works with copies in embassies where there is a potential for trouble? I doubt most visitors to the Iranian embassy would be able to tell the difference between the real thing and a copy anyway...
Don't forget the paintings!
November 30 2011
Picture: GAC
After another spat with the Iranian government, Britain is to close its embassy in Tehran. Last time we left an embassay in a hurry (Tripoli) the staff took the computers, but left all the pictures. They've since disappeared. So let's hope that this time they remember the art, which is on loan to the embassy from the Government Art Collection. Above is a highly valuable oil portrait of Fath 'Ali Shah, the 2nd Qajar Shah of Iran, dated 1813. Also listed as being in Tehran is a portrait of Queen Victoria by George Hayter, dated 1863. A quick call to the Government Art Collection was met with... an answerphone.
Brueghel the Elder discovery at the Prado
November 29 2011
Picture: NY Times
Further to Lawrence's post yesterday about the latest issue of the Burlington Magazine, here's an image of the Prado's recently acquired and newly discovered The Wine of St Martin's Day by Pieter Brueghel the Elder. The picture seems not to be on the Prado's own website (question; why do museum website take so long to change?) , but is available at the NY Times, where you can zoom in on the details.
Newly restored something at Dulwich Picture Gallery
November 25 2011
Picture: Dulwich Picture Gallery
A curious example of poor websitery over at Dulwich Picture Gallery. Announcing the 'stunning restoration' of a 17th Century work Saint Cecilia, they've illustrated it with the most tiny of images (above). The picture was previously thought to have been by Annibale Carracci, but has now been 'de-attributed' (tho' we are not told why). Don't you find it odd when museums assume visitors to their site only want the most trivial of details, or the smallest of images? If Dulwich put a better image up, they might find someone to help them with the attribution...
You know an exhibition is important when...
November 12 2011
...Brian Sewell reviews it in two parts, over two days! Part one here, and part two here. Sewell is always at his best when he doesn't like something, which is often. So the review of 'Leonardo' is a little... loose. Obviously, he likes it, and for its curator, Luke Syson would:
...honour him with a life peerage; his impending departure for New York is a loss to the nation.
Hear hear to that. Inevitably, Sewell finds something not to like in the show, and it is, you guessed it, the Salvator Mundi:
In what is essentially a scholarly and didactic exhibition that encourages the visitor to make comparisons and study the relationship of paintings with preliminary drawings, I am not entirely happy to see included and supported the newly rediscovered and identified Salvator Mundi. The cracking of the panel with associated losses of paint, aggressive over-cleaning and abrasion over the whole surface are all acknowledged, and I must ask at what point does a ruined painting heavily restored cease to be original? This is a wreck now so ill-defined, so smudged and fudged that glutinous gravy seems to have been the medium of its restoration. The hand raised in blessing, the associated drapery and some residuary details of hair and clothing, all suggest that this may once have been by Leonardo, but what we see now was formerly subcutaneous. That there is no revision or reinvention of the iconography also rouses my suspicion.
Can this ghostly, ghastly and blind-eyed face really be the invention of the same aesthetic mind as the melancholy Christ of the Last Supper? It would have been extremely useful to have had at hand a severe technical examination of this panel so that we know precisely the extent of past damage and present restoration; without this, its gushing acceptance as genuine must seem gullible.
He's over-egging it here - the condition is not that bad. It's interesting to note that Salvator Mundi has found immeasurably less favour amongst journalists than art historians. Barely a review has been published in England in which a journalist has not cast doubt on the picture. What is it about the discovery that the hacks don't like?
Cleaning tests
November 8 2011
Picture: BG
The first cleaning test on a picture is often the moment of revelation - is the picture beneath the grime and yellowed varnish a beauty, or a beast? Cleaning, we say in the trade, is the friend of a good picture, and the enemy of a bad one. The filtering effects of old varnish can not only hide the virtues of a masterpiece, but also the weaknesses of a copy.
Here are the remains of a little cleaning test we did on a picture last night. The various potions include acetone for removing the layers of old varnish, and white spirit, for 'wetting out' the surface. We occasionally also have to use scalpels for really stubborn areas of over-paint. The yellow gunk on the cotton wool swabs is the removed old varnish and surface dirt.
Lighting the Night Watch
October 27 2011
The Rijksmuseum has unveiled a new lighting system for Rembrandt's Night Watch in a bid to get as close to daylight as possible. From the Washington Post:
Pijbes [Wim Pijbes, Director of the Rijksmuseum] said the museum had considered using natural light, but that idea faced insurmountable practical difficulties. It would make it difficult for the more than a million tourists who want to see the painting annually to view it during the many dark months and cloudy days in the Netherlands. Any exposure to direct sunlight was out of the question due to the damage it could cause the canvas, he said.
The painting has been on display in a side wing of the museum for almost a decade as the building undergoes a massive renovation. It is due to return to its place of honor at the center of the museum’s hall of honor next spring.
More here.
National Gallery Leonardo technical bulletin
October 27 2011
Picture: National Gallery, Leonardo's 'Virgin of the Rocks' (detail) in Infra-Red.
The latest National Gallery Technical Bulletin is out, and, wonderfully, freely available online with zoomable high-res images. Art History nirvana doesn't get much better than this. Essays include:
- Leonardo in Verrocchio’s Workshop: Re-examining the Technical Evidence by Jill Dunkerton
- Leonardo da Vinci’s 'Virgin of the Rocks': Treatment, Technique and Display by Larry Keith, Ashok Roy, Rachel Morrison and Peter Schade
- Altered Angels: Two Panels from the Immaculate Conception Altarpiece once in San Francesco Grande, Milan by Rachel Billinge, Luke Syson and Marika Spring
- Painting Practice in Milan in the 1490s: The Influence of Leonardo, by Marika Spring, Antonio Mazzotta, Ashok Roy, Rachel Billinge and David Peggie
Why you shouldn't trust an auction house condition report
October 21 2011
This was the condition report on a head and shoulders portrait of a gentleman, which we recently bought from a prominent regional UK auctioneer:
Fine craqueleure in areas, several deep scratches to lower half that require retouching, some old restoration, would benefit from a clean.
You wouldn't guess from this that the scratches (actually rips in the canvas) were in the face, the most important part of any portrait. And not least because the face was in the top half of the painting!
Another reason to go to the Gainsborough Study Day
October 21 2011
Picture: Holburne Museum
The organisers have been in touch to say that Rica Jones will also be speaking at the Study Day (14th Nov), on 'Insights into the production of Gainsborough's landscapes in the Sudbury-Ipswich period'. Jones, of the Tate conservation department, has made a hugely valuable conribution to Gainsborough studies with her technical analysis of Gainsborough's work, in particular his use of glazes.
See you all there!
Rejuvenating Jouvenet
October 21 2011
Picture: The Louvre
The Louvre has restored Jean Jouvenet's 1699 L'Hiver. Full story here (in French).
'The First Actresses' exhibition
October 20 2011
Picture: National Portrait Gallery, London
I saw the National Portrait Gallery's new 'First Actresses' exhibition yesterday. It's well worth a visit; a nicely set out show of celebrated actresses from the 17th and 18th Centuries, from Nell Gwyn to Sarah Siddons. The exhibition's curators have selected some fine works. The highlights for me were two of Gainsborough's finest full-lengths, Madame Baccelli (Tate) and Elizabeth Linley, on loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington. The NPG have also rebuilt their temporary exhibition space, with great success.
The catalogue has some informative contributions, and sets out actress's (sometimes precarious) place in society with clarity and panache. However, if you're interested in the portraits themselves - say, their provenance or the circumstances surrounding their creation - then you'll be disappointed. I looked in vain for any information on the newly discovered portrait of Nell Gwyn. Both catalogue and exhibition are devoid of any meaningful research on the artist's role in the portraits. And surely it was thanks in part to the artists that the actresses achieved their fame (not least when it came to popular engravings). Some might say this is worrying in the National Portrait Gallery, and perhaps tellingly two portraits are exhibited with tentative attributions (and there's at least one attribution I have great trouble believing). Where have all the portrait experts gone?
Before I start ranting about connoisseurship again (and it really doesn't detract from this splendid exhibition), let me turn to condition. The two Gainsborough full-lengths here are in excellent preservation, and hung low so you can really look into them - a great treat. Likewise, George Romney's Emma Hamilton on loan from Kenwood House is, in its uncleaned but readable state, a glowing endorsement of what is called 'country house condition'. Sadly, the same can't be said of Verelst's daring and beautiful portrait of the naked Nell Gwyn. This has been cleaned for the exhibition, and, as can be glimpsed from the photo above, has lost something of its original delicacy. Verelst is known for his porcelaineous finish and crisp drawing, as can be seen in Nell's hand. But while the picture may have been succesfully cleaned, its restoration, the process of repairing the damaged and missing areas of original paint, leaves something to be desired. For example, there are too many missing glazes, such that the curls in her hair and the shadows around her face don't read as they should. Even the purple drapery looks overly bruised and damaged.
Succesful conservation is about so much more than technical skill - it requires a degree of artistry, and a sense of art history, that not all conservators are blessed with. Those restorers who lack that artistic feel often make a conscious decision to leave damage exposed - and call this approach 'minimal intervention'. But, while nobody likes an over-restored picture, there is a middle ground, which involves the careful re-introduction of retouching medium in the manner the artist would have intended.
The most succesful conservation is often a collaboration between restorer and expert, rather like a talented violinist under the guidance of a veteran conductor. The conductor may not be able to play the violin themselves, but in having spent their whole life studying, say, Beethoven, knows better than the violinist how the bare notes on a page should translate into a characterful performance. In Nell Gwyn's case, therefore, a quick refresher course in Verelst might reveal where the picture would benefit from judicious intervention - a retouch here, and a glaze there, and suddenly a picture can be transformed.
The Louvre cleans a Leonardo
October 15 2011
Exciting news - the Louvre has released some images of its restoration of Leonardo's Virgin and Child with St Anne. You can zoom in on what it used to look like here.
The Louvre is famously averse to cleaning pictures. Some (including me) would say that the Louvre's keep-em-dirty approach has paid off, for wandering around the collection today it is noticeable that the pictures are generally in exceptional condition. Ov average, the collection is in better condition than that of the National Gallery, which was one of the first public galleries to start cleaning pictures, often with disastrous consequences. These days, happily, cleaning techniques are advanced enough for us to be sure of doing as little permanent damage as possible.
Look at this painting - did you notice the missing piece?
October 6 2011
Picture: Tate
As I mentioned earlier, the Tate has restored the missing section of John Martin's Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum. The decision to restore it was undertaken with the help of a vision scientist, Tim Smith, who tracked the eye movements of 20 people to see how they reacted to the damage in the painting. Not surprisingly, they noticed the missing section. He has written an article about the process:
The decisions made by conservators when restoring important works of art have a direct influence on how the final painting will be perceived and there is a lot of psychological insight that can inform this process. For example, computational models of visual attention can tell a conservator whether a crack or the loss of a segment is likely to capture the viewer's attention and how this will change depending on the context in which the painting is viewed.
For the damaged John Martin we decided to compare how viewers attended to and made sense of different digital reconstructions of the painting by recording viewer eye movements. An eyetracker uses high-speed infrared cameras to record where a person looks on a screen. This allowed the TATE to foresee how viewers might attend to the final product before embarking on costly and time-consuming work on the painting itself.
[...]
In the neutral version of the painting the mouth of the volcano and part of the city is lost and instead the viewer dwells on the edges of the loss, spending significantly less time on the foreground figures. The consequence of the different gaze pattern is that when asked to describe the content of the painting, viewers of the unreconstructed version did not realise it was a painting of an erupting volcano. The painting had lost its meaning and viewers could not view it as originally intended by Martin.
The difference in gaze behaviour between the completely restored and unrestored (neutrally filled) versions confirmed our intuitions about how destructive the loss was. [...]
Isn't this an explanation of the bleedin' obvious? I'd love to know if this exercise cost the Tate anything.
