22-mc06-TE-2012_Moncalieri, Castle, Portrait of Emperor James I, inv. 1299 DC

Facilitated description: 

 

Portrait of Emperor James I (first) is a painting on canvas made during the 1700s. 
The painting is kept at the Castle of Moncalieri. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2012. 
Scientists have done scientific analysis to study how the painting was made and to see if there are any restorations of the past. 
The restorers cleaned the frame (wooden structure that stands behind the painting and serves to support the painting) and the canvas.   
After the restorers cleaned the front part of the painting.
They removed the dust and some of the paintings from the old restorations. 
They kept the paintings of the old restoration.  
They filled the color gaps with putty (plaster and glue layer). 
They painted the putty. 
They painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
Eventually they cleaned the frame and filled the missing wooden parts with putty. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The restoration was preceded by a multispectral analysis campaign in order to obtain information on the state of conservation and the execution technique of the work. It was first realized a series of shots in ultraviolet fluorescence, which highlighted the presence of previous interventions and then an infrared detection and its processing in false color to read the pictorial conduction and the conservative conditions of the canvas. 

The intervention began with the cleaning of the frame and the support canvas from coherent and inconsistent deposits with micro-aspirator, brushes and sponges for deposits in the interstices of the canvas. On the pictorial film a chemical cleaning has been prepared to eliminate the paint and the altered touch-ups (only the oldest oil repaintings have been preserved and the one in correspondence of the right cheek and nose, as the radiographic analysis has revealed the total loss of original material below). A preliminary painting was then carried out and the gaps were compensated with plaster and glue grouting, then chromatically integrated. A painting was done to protect the surface.
Finally, the frame was the subject of a maintenance intervention that provided for a cleaning of the deposits and the rehabilitation of the gaps with plastering and watercolor camouflage integration.