15-TE-2008_Moncalieri, Castle, Knight, inv. 295

Facilitated description:

 

Cavaliere is a painting on canvas made during the 1600s.
The painting depicts a man on horseback.
The painting is kept at the Castle of Moncalieri. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2008. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to see how the painting was made and where the restorations of the past are. 
The restorers dismantled the painting from the frame (wooden structure that stands behind the painting and serves to support the painting) to clean behind the painting.
They repaired the unwrapped canvas parts.  
They mounted the painting on a new frame. 
The restorers also worked on the front of the painting. 
They cleaned the painting from old restoration paintings. 
They filled the color gaps with putty (plaster and glue layer). 
They colored the putty with watercolors.
They painted the paint to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.
In the end the restorers cleaned the frame.
They painted the wooden parts without color.
They painted the frame to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

Restoration

The painting is part of a series of portraits of characters from the House of Savoy. 
The intervention was preceded by a diagnostic campaign aimed at deepening the knowledge of the state of conservation, the executive technique and the presence of previous restoration interventions.
The operations began with the removal of the work from the frame and the paper residues from previous restorations. It was followed by a cleaning of the support, the smoothing of the edges and compensation of the torn tissue parts. Perimeter ties were then added. The canvas was then re-tensioned onto a new expansion frame. 
The paint residues were removed on the pictorial film, so the original colors emerged on the bottom with extensive abrasions and in the upper part a darker blue band of unclear functionality. Subsequently, the consolidations were carried out, the chromatic re-itegration with watercolor and varnish colors with camouflage technique and the final painting.
Finally, on the frame, not original, a cleaning of the front was performed to eliminate the protective and the verse. The plastering and the chromantic reintegration and the painting were then carried out.