Turin, Galleria Sabauda, Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, Triptych, Madonna Enthroned with Child and Two Saints, Paintings on panel

consistency

Restoration report (1983) and photographic documentation relating to the intervention carried out on the Triptych depicting a Madonna Enthroned with Child and Two Saints by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti. The photographs illustrate the phases before and during the restoration.

Works supervision: Rosalba Tardito Amerio. 

 

 

Facilitated description
 

The work "Triptych, Madonna Enthroned with Child and Two Saints" by Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, now known as "Madonna with Child Enthroned with San Ubaldo and San Sebastiano" is a painting on panel of about 1480-1485 preserved at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin.
The restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon restored the work in 1983 under the direction of Rosalba Tardito Amerio.
This painting on board is composed of three boards and a non-original frame.
The wood on the boards had been thinned before and had been attacked by xylophagous insects (insects that feed on the wood and damage the work).
The pictorial film was covered with a thick layer of paint that weighed down the gilding and made the colors flat.
The restorer Pinin Brambilla has identified past pictorial interventions, recognizable by the different materials and shades.
The restorer began by fixing the lifting of the painting and cleaning the back of the work.
The original colours appeared more real, but the pictorial surface was worn due to previous cleaning (cleaning the surface of the work of art from dirt deposited over time).
The restorer has carried out the plastering of the gaps (a white layer of plaster and glue that extends inside a gap and forms a smooth and uniform base on which to paint the additions).
He performed the pictorial integration (reconstruction of the material or color of missing parts) with hatch technique (thin and small lines of color that from a distance recompose the shape of the missing part) in the gaps (missing parts) and with veils (transparent layer of color) in the abrasions (scratches on the surface due to rubbing).
The restoration also affected the frame.