RESTURO CONSERVATION CENTER La Venaria Realehome / restoration / Paper and photography



The laboratory was launched in 2016. It deals with maintenance, conservation, restoration and reconditioning of paper, archival, book, parchment, photographic and film assets.

In 2017, thanks to ministerial accreditation, the University of Turin was able to activate, together with the JRC, a further specialisation course (PFP5) for the degree course in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage. The laboratory has addressed and solved conservation problems both on ancient Western and Eastern artifacts and on contemporary works. He has also supported museum and exhibition set-up and dismantling activities. He intervened on entire archival and book collections as well as on single graphic and photographic works, entire cores and even tapestries and three-dimensional works in paper.

He has conducted restoration campaigns on local, national and international heritage, both public and private: University of Turin, Pinacoteca dell’Accademia Albertina, foundations, civic and national libraries, art collections belonging to Intesa Sanpaolo.

The creation of the laboratory was made possible thanks to the support of Fondazione Cecilia Gilardi onlus, Intesa Sanpaolo and Material ConneXion Italia.

Director of Laboratories
Michela Cardinali

Deputy Director of Laboratories
Roberta Genta

Head of Area
Roberta Genta

Coordinator
Amber D'Aleo

Restorers
Magdalene Trabace (disambiguation)

Art historian
Luca Avataneo

CASE STUDY

Luisella Terzi

The fairy tales of Aunt Mariù

1913,
Turin, Tancredi Foundation of Barolo

The work is a book of particular value and uniqueness, entirely handmade by the Florentine teacher Luisella Terzi for her friend Paola Lombroso Carrara, author of the book of the same name and journalist and founder of the ‘Corriere dei piccoli’. On each board there are one or two movable figures, shaped on cardboard and hand-painted, animated by means of “leverages”, i.e. by means of lever systems operated by tie rods. These figurines are inspired by the characters from the fairy tales of Paola Lombroso (Aunt Mariù).

CASE STUDY

Lombroso

28 April 1906

1906
Turin, ‘Cesare Lombroso’ Museum of Criminal Anthropology

The volume entitled ‘28 April 1906’ contains 613 sheets of blank or textured paper containing autographs and letters sent and/or transcribed following the ‘VI International Congress of Criminal Anthropology’ held in Turin in 1906. The precious binding created by the Vezzosi company of Turin is embellished by the presence of a metal plate with the initials CL (Cesare Lombroso). Due to its poor state of preservation and the total disintegration of the structure and the fragmentation of the handwritten cards and letters pasted on each page of the volume, the intervention provided for careful and meticulous research and recomposition of each fragment, as well as the reconstruction of the block of cards in order to enhance and restore legibility of the work in its entirety.

CASE STUDY

Nan Goldin

Rebecca and I as Madonna and Child

1986
Private collection

The work of American photographer and activist Nan Goldin is a Cibachrome metal analogue photographic print on large dibonds. In a fairly conservative state, the photographic work had a considerable gap in the printing medium and an important and disfiguring surface scratch on the image side.
The main objective of the intervention was to recover the readability and use of the work and its long-term conservation through conservative interventions aimed at restoring the unity of the material and stopping the consequences of the physical degradation present.

CASE STUDY

Tarot Visconti Sforza

15th century
Bergamo, Accademia Carrara

The works, dated to the second half of the fifteenth century, entitled Justice e The Moon are part of a tarot deck consisting of 26 cards, five of which are triumphs and seven are figured cards, kept in an air-conditioned display case at the Accademia Carrara in Bergamo. The papers were made by the prestigious Cremonese workshop of Bonifacio Bembo, an Italian painter and illuminator, commissioned by Francesco Sforza, lord of Milan. The works illustrate scenes of everyday life and depict the chivalric context of the time.

CASE STUDY

the Quintino Sella Fund

Documents in parchment

15th-16th century Biella, Sella Foundation

Six membrane documents manuscripts with iron-gallic inks, dated between the end of the fifteenth century and the first half of the sixteenth century, belong to the Fondo Quintino Sella Original series, deck 10 of the Sella Foundation of Biella.
In particular, the parchment entitled 16 February 1492 It consisted of three documents (two parchments and a paper sheet) of different sizes, hooked together by tapeworm of parchment outside the support. The parchment entitled 26 December 1556 on the other hand, it has a red wax pendant seal, round in shape, in a wooden case, anchored to the document by means of a two-tone tubular silk cord with several threads.

CASE STUDY

Papier Peint To China»

Turin, Intesa Sanpaolo Collections. Headquarters of the Compagnia di San Paolo Foundation

The work in question is a portion of a larger papier peint in painted paper measuring 3.56 x 2.65 m dating back to the second half of the 18th century.
The large format of the work and the frame, which constrained the movements as a result of fluctuations in seasonal thermo-hygrometric values, had created tension problems with consequent small deformations of the paper surface. The proposed intervention aimed to preserve and restore the work by dismantling it from the frame and transporting it to the JRC laboratories where it was subjected to an in-depth structural and pictorial surface analysis.

Related

Science

The Scientific Laboratories carry out diagnostic and research activities applied to Cultural Heritage with advanced technological tools, including an innovative radio-tomographic machine for digital radiographs and CT scans of large objects.

Training

The School of Higher Education and Study (SAF) organizes and manages training and professional development courses and, thanks to the agreement with the University of Turin, participates in the organization of the Degree Course.

Documentation

The Center develops and conducts activities of documentation and enhancement of archival and bibliographic funds of particular importance for the conservation and restoration of cultural heritage.