08-TA-2005_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, Triptych carved with Christ deposed and Madonna and Child, inv. 6/897

Facilitated description:

 

The Triptych with Christ deposed and Madonna and Child is a painted wooden work composed of 3 parts, for this reason it is called a triptych.
The triptych represents at the top center the sculpture of Jesus after the crucifixion and at the bottom the sculpture of the Madonna and Child Jesus. In the lateral parts are paintings of saints.
The triptych was built at the beginning of 1400.
The triptych is kept at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the triptych in 2005 in two parts.
Scientists at the Center did scientific analysis to find out when the saints on the sides were painted.
The restorers reinforced the ruined wooden pate.
They placed the triptych in an anoxic chamber, an oxygen-free chamber that serves to eliminate wood-eating insects.
They glued the raised wooden parts and cleaned the triptych from dust.
During the cleaning they saw that the Madonna's dress was repainted in blue and red.
In the second part of the restoration they dismantled the triptych to clean all parts with the light of a laser, chemicals and scalpel.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The first batch of interventions was made possible thanks to the funding of the Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage with the 2005 Lot funds. First consolidations of the weakened parts of the wooden support were carried out, the wooden additions and the canvas patches placed on the sides were removed and disinfestation was carried out in anoxic chamber. The intervention on the pictorial film made use of the results of the radiographs, which highlighted a dating of the four saints in painting not coeval with that of the relief and in the side doors the presence of a golden halo and a face, positioned higher than the figure visible today. We have therefore intervened with a consolidation of the lifting of the chromatic film and the preparation. To reconstitute the good adhesion between the layers, the surface was velinated with a collect, excluding the areas with gilding, and the color scales raised with thermocautery were fixed. The deposits of greasy and tenacious dust were then cleaned, the overlaid varnish was removed and the "purple" gilding was cleaned. 
In order to identify the original colour scheme, localised stratigraphic tests were carried out, which revealed the gilding as the original application, while the Madonna’s dress dates back to a later pictorial adaptation (repainted the cloak in blue and the dress in red), as well as the bottom of the bas-relief and the lateral doors (grey-blue). On this layer the currently visible repainting was carried out. 

The second batch of intervention provided for the temporary fractionation of the triptych and the positioning on a support to facilitate the laser cleaning phase. In addition, localized consolidations and punctual gluing with vinyl glue were performed.
On the pictorial surface, chemical and mechanical cleaning of the parts that cannot be treated with laser light was carried out (central panel: embodied and hair of the Christ, the Virgin, the putto and the cherub) carried out with solvent and scalpel. Consolidations were carried out at the same time. Laser cleaning was then performed with Nd:YAG 1064 nm instrumentation in long-q switch mode, fine-tuned according to the different types of stratigraphy. In a portion of the work, located in the inner flap of the veil and the right sleeve of the Virgin, special working conditions were adopted because the repaintings concealed the presence of the same original layer based on Azzurrite pigment. In this case the laser has made it possible to thin the most superficial and tenacious layers and to favor the final removal intervention with solvent and scalpel.

 

Bibliography

- A real case study: the Polyptych of the Savoy Gallery, in The laser. Cleaning on materials of artistic interest. Experimental activity, A. Giovagnoli (eds.), Firenze 2009, pp. 87-98.

- Buscaglia P., Croveri P., Nervo M., Piccirillo A., Zenucchini F., From experimental studies to applications in conservation field: laser tests on a polychrome wooden work of art, in Laser in the conservation of artworks 8th international congress on the conservation of lasers in artworks (book of abstracts), 21-25 september 2009, Sibiu, Romania, p.