Case Histories
The Sibyl announces to Augustus the advent of Christ
Atelier of Pietro Berrettini said by Cortona
Brief description of the interventions
The painting depicting the Sibyl announcing the advent of Christ to Augustus was entrusted to the Centre following a training course carried out by students in the second year of the PFP2 sector of the Degree Course in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage.
The internship provided for the safety and conservative filing of some works kept in the deposits of the Castle of Racconigi.
Due to its conservation features and its pictorial quality, the work was subsequently included in the university training courses carried out within the JRC’s Canvas and Tables Laboratory.
With the start of the intervention, executive details emerged that allowed it to be combined with the canvas of a similar subject painted by Pietro da Cortona for the Hôtel de Toulouse in Paris, now exhibited at the Musée de Beaux Arts in Nancy, and other contemporary replicas, preserved at Hampton Court (Royal Collection Trust) and at the Ringling Museum in Sarasota.
Thanks to the collaboration between the Regional Directorate of Piedmont Museums and the Consortium of Royal Residences of Savoy, which made possible the conclusion of the restoration, the Laboratory of canvases and panels was able to finish the complex intervention of aesthetic restitution, which ensured the complete recovery of the legibility of the painting.
The work presented a number of conservation issues.
The intervention was divided into several phases:
- protection and velinatura of the pictorial surface functional to the transport of the work in the laboratory
- resolution of the considerable deformations of the support and of the pictorial film due to the lack of tension and to the breakage of the frame
- interventions of consolidation and re-adhesion of the pictorial layers to the support
- cleaning of the pictorial surface with removal of deposits of various kinds
- plastering of the numerous lacks of pictorial film, caused by a degradation linked to the executive technique and the conservative events suffered by the work over time
- aesthetic presentation of the areas subject to plastering through integrations with watercolor colors, ensuring full recognition of the areas integrated by those that preserve the original pictorial film
- application of a final protective
CCR and accessibility
