06-TA-2009_Padua, Civic Museums - Museum of Medieval and Modern Art, J. da Montagnana (Parisati), I Santi Agata, Francesco e Girolamo, inv. 9

Facilitated description: 

 

The Saints Agatha, Francis and Jerome is a painting on wood made by Jacopo da Montagnana during the 1400s.
The painting is kept at the Museum of Medieval and Modern Art in Padua.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2009.
The restoration students also participated in the restoration.
Scientists at the Venaria Center have done scientific analysis to see what materials the painting is made from and see if restorations have been made in the past.
The restorers cleaned the back of the painting.
They replaced some wooden parts and straightened the wooden planks.
They've eliminated wood-eating insects with chemicals.
They cleaned the front of the painting of dust.
They have eliminated the ruined painting of the old restorations.
They filled the color gaps with a layer of putty (plaster and glue).
They colored the putty with watercolors.
Eventually they painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust and cleaned the frame. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The intervention was preceded by an educational project with two classes of the Interfaculty Course in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (II and III academic year of the area of specialisation painted on canvas and board). On this occasion, an in-depth analysis of the work’s execution technique and a campaign of non-invasive cognitive investigations (multispectral analyses: UV, IR, IR-FC, RX; ED-XRF for the identification of the constituent materials of the work and the overlays of materials attributable to subsequent restoration work). 

Restoration

The intervention on the table was carried out with a view to a low invasiveness on the original support in order not to cause further stress to the work. The choice to keep the crossbars, even if not original, goes in this direction and in the perspective of documenting an intervention now historicized. Instead, the central transverse and butterfly inserts have been replaced. Subsequently, the back of the board was cleaned and the materials foreign to the work (glue residues and groutings) were removed. The disassembly and consolidation of the structure and the anti-mould treatment were then carried out. For the right commissioning intervened with the insertion of wooden wedges, then fixed. It is therefore procetudo the realignment of the axes, the tessellation and the addition of a small rule. 
As for the interventions on the pictorial surface, a cleaning was carried out aimed at thinning the ancient oily repaintings of the sky to partially recover the original depth and chromatic intensity. The consolidation of the pictorial layers with adhesive, the plastering, the reitegration of the abrasions and the chromatic adaptation of the repaintings with paint colors followed. Finally, a final protective was applied.
On the frame was carried out a maintenance intervention of dusting and removal of deposits. In addition, a wooden box was built on the back of the work to ensure good resistance to external environmental conditions, especially during transport.