39-ML-2014_Venaria Reale, Reggia di Venaria, A. Baratta, High relief with Portrait of Vittorio Amedeo II, inv. 742 (property of the hunting lodge of Stupinigi)

Facilitated description:

 

The high relief of Vittorio Amedeo II is a stone sculpture made in the eighteenth century.
The young King Vittorio Amedeo II is represented on horseback on an oval background.
The sculpture is preserved at the Reggia di Venaria.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the sculpture in 2014.
The restorers cleaned the sculpture to remove the dirt.
They used different techniques depending on the areas.
They reinforced the sculpture, gluing a piece of the horse's right ear and staring at the left paw and the angel's head to the right.
In the end, they putty (spread a layer of plaster and glue) and painted the restored parts to make them look like the rest of the work.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The high-relief with a portrait of Vittorio Amedeo II has been the subject of conservation and restoration work in view of the exhibition during the visit to the Reggia di Venaria. The work, owned by the Fondazione Ordine Mauriziano and coming from the Palazzina di Caccia di Stupinigi, was loaned to the Reggia di Venaria.

An initial dry cleaning operation made it possible to remove a large part of the incoherent deposit present on the surfaces of the work, while in the other areas the cleaning was differentiated. Consolidations were also carried out on the work, in particular a fragment relating to the right ear of the horse was re-adhesive with quick-setting resin, while the ends of the left paw and the head of the putto on the right were treated differently (replacement of the fiberglass pin present in the paw, removal of the previous grouting at the putto head and insulation of the metal pin by acrylic resin). In correspondence with the consolidations, new plasterings were carried out, suitably pigmented with light veils of watercolor to conform to the color of the constituent material.