38-TE-2014_Venaria, Reggia, M. G. B. Clementi (Clementine) attr., Portrait of Polyxena of Hesse, inv. 1525 (ownership of Stupinigi's hunting lodge)

Facilitated description:

 

The portrait of Polissena of Hesse is a painting made by Maria Giovanna Battista Clementi in the eighteenth century.
The painting represents the Queen of Sardinia.
The painting is kept at the Reggia di Venaria.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2014.
The restorers cleaned the painting from dust and glued the raised painting parts.
They eliminated the paint and the painted parts dating back to interventions of a later era.
They filled the missing color parts with a stucco base (plaster and glue layer) colored with watercolors.
Eventually they painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restaruro

The painting has been the subject of conservation and restoration work in view of the exhibition during the visit to the Reggia di Venaria. The painting was on loan from the Mauritian Order Foundation. 

After the removal of surface deposits, we intervened on the canvas with a gradual re-establishment of adhesion defects. Subsequently, the paint and the retouching due to the subsequent restoration were removed, thus recovering the original color. The previous fillings, which were overflowing on the original or unsuitable, were removed mechanically while those deemed suitable were retained. At the end of these interventions, the small gaps in the pictorial layers were filled and the plastering carried out from scratch, then retouched with watercolour colours. Finally, a protective coating was applied.

On the occasion of this intervention and at the request of the Consortium of Cultural Valorization La Venaria Reale, the Laboratory of Wooden Furnishings of the JRC has created a golden and carved frame for the painting.