Case Study

Brief description of the interventions

Stored in a storage room on the ground floor of the Castello di Racconigi, the work appeared largely covered by a velinatura, made before 1950 with sheets of paper glued to the pictorial surface, which did not allow the subject to be identified.
Given the particular relevance from a conservative and formative point of view, the painting was involved in an internship carried out with the students of the Degree Course in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, which continued with its inclusion in the educational paths of the PFP2 sector.

The delicate removal of the paper, prior to the transfer of the work to the Centre, made it possible to bring its subject back to light and attribute it to the hand of the painter Giovanni Battista Beinaschi thanks to the research carried out at the same time by Rossana Vitiello, art historian of the protection body that had handed over the Castello di Racconigi and its heritage.
Following a substantial intervention on the support and cleaning operations, a first presentation of the work took place during the exhibition dedicated to the Face of Jesus, held at the Raffaele residence in April 2010.

At the end of the exhibition the painting returned to the JRC laboratories; here, thanks to the collaboration between the Regional Directorate of Piedmont Museums and the Consortium of Royal Residences of Savoy, which supported its completion, it was possible to carry out the operations of integration of the many gaps still present.
The different operational phases of the restoration, which ensured not only the conservative recovery of the work, but also the full legibility of the subject and the pictorial quality of the painting, can be summarised as follows:

• First on-the-spot intervention: the removal of the tissue of paper glued to the surface, partially detached with numerous fragments of adhesive color, required localized consolidations and a new tissueing
• removal of the canvas and paste glue from the verso
• biocidal treatment
• consolidations and color stoppage
• removal of the waxing and subsequent cleaning of the surface from retouching and old altered paints
• lining intervention, carried out with suitable methodology in consideration of the particular characteristics of the sparse support canvas
• tensioning on new wooden frame
• plastering in imitation of the surface texture, aimed at compensating for the widespread gaps
• pictorial integration with watercolor colors and final varnish glazes
• application of final varnish for protective purposes