21mc042-TA-2008_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, P. Gysels, Interior of the Dutch Chamber, inv. 329, cat. 267

Facilitated description:

 

Dutch Chamber Interior is a painting on metal (copper) made by Peeter Gysels in 1679. 
The painting is kept at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.
The painting represents a room with paintings on the walls and on the floor fruits and plates. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2008. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to study the painting.
The restorers have placed the frame and the wooden table that is under the painting in an anoxic chamber, a chamber without oxygen that serves to elimianre the insects that eat the wood. 
They cleaned the painting of dust, yellowed paint and old restoration paintings. 
They painted with paint paint the parts without color. 
They painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
They cleaned the cone of dust. 
They filled the shortcomings of the layer under the gilding with putty (plaster and glue). 
They gilded the putty and the parts without gilding with gold. 
In the end they painted the frame.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The restoration of the work began with the display of the frame support in the anoxic chamber.
The pictorial surface was subjected to suction of the surface deposits and, after the dismantling of the frame, the pictorial layers were investigated thanks to multispectral analyses. It was therefore decided to remove the protective film and the altered touch-ups. After the laying of a first layer of paint, the micro gaps were reintegrated pictorially with paint colors, restoring continuity to the chromatic reading of the painting. Finally, a protective was sprayed.

 

Frame
After treatment in anoxic chamber, a surface cleaning with solvent mixture was carried out. The gaps in the preparatory layers were filled with plaster and animal glue and then sanded. On this substrate, according to the indications of the Directorate of Works, the bolus was applied in three different layers with different colors (basic yellow, orange and red) and the camouflage integrations with gold foil were carried out. The gilding was then browned and lowered in tone with pigments bound with rabbit glue. Finally, a final protective was sprayed.

 

Bibliography

S. Piretta, Sheet 7.3 in De Van Dyck in Bellotto. Splendeurs à la cour de Savoie, C. E. Spantigati, P. Astrua, A. M. Bava, S. Damiano, Turin, Allemandi, 2009, p. 178.