124mc15-AL-2017_Turin, Palazzo Reale, G. G. Descalzi (the Bell Tower), Round table with radial inlays, inv. 4805

Facilitated description:

 

The round table by Giuseppe Gaetano Descalzi was made in 1838.
The table is kept at the Royal Palace of Turin.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the desk in 2017.
The restorers placed the table in an anoxic chamber, an oxygen-free chamber that serves to eliminate wood-eating insects.
They cleaned the table of dust.
They filled the missing wooden parts with similar wooden tiles. They colored the wooden tiles on the back to make recognizable the parts added with the restoration.
They painted the desk to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration carried out on the occasion of the exhibition on display Genius and mestria. Furniture and cabinetmakers at the Savoy court between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Reggia di Venaria, Sala delle Arti 17 March - 15 July 2018).

Restoration

The intervention began with a disinfestation in the anoxic chamber for a period of three weeks to eliminate any symptomatic attacks. The surface was then chemically cleaned of waxy and glue residues. For the integration of the missing parts were used the same wood essences of the original, on the tiles was spread a substance that makes them recognizable to the RX analysis. The slits were filled instead with pigmented wax and the abrasion on the surface was chromatically adjusted to the rest of the surface with watercolours stretched out in a veil. Finally, a protective coating was applied. 

 

Bibliography

C. Accornero, Sheet 82, in Genius and mestria. Furniture and cabinetmakers at the Savoy court between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (catalogue), edited by S. De Blasi, Turin, Allemandi, 2018, pp. 308-309.