9mc07-TA-2019_Torino, Museo Civico d'Arte Antica - Palazzo Madama, J. P. F. Barrois, Portrait of Louis Antoine Clemaron, inv. 520

DFacilitated registration: 

 

Portrait of Louis Antoine Clemaron is a small painting on ivory (material obtained from elephant tusks).
The painting was made in 1810.
The painting is kept at the Civic Museum of Ancient Art in Turin (Palazzo Madama).
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2019.
The restorers dismantled the painting from the frame.
They put the painting under weights to flatten it.
They cleaned the painting of dust.
They filled the color gaps with paint.
They repaired the blue layer behind the painting with a special fabric.
In the end they cleaned the frame and glued the detached pieces.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

Restoration of the miniature Portrait of Louis Antoine Clemaron, 520 started with disassembly from the frame and cleaning with soft brushes and microaspirator. Subsequently the work was left under weight to favor the restoration of planarity and the stoppages of the de-adese color scales and the minute lifting points were carried out. The pictorial retouching was performed with resin-based paint colors, sometimes added with other types of resins to achieve a more defined gloss effect. A non-woven fabric insert was then applied to fill the gap in the outermost blue support, tuned with watercolor colors to match the rest of the support.

Frame
Chemical cleaning of the metal frame and glass to remove inconsistent dusty deposits and greasy dirt and remove strips of adhesive tape. Subsequently, the bonding of the fractured parts and the replacement of any damaged elements (screws, bolts) were carried out.