25mc06-TA-2014_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, J. Dirck, Portrait of a man with a letter, inv. 86

Facilitated description:

 

The Portrait of a Man with Letter is a painting on a wooden table. 
The painter Jacobsz made the painting in the first half of the 1400s. 
The painting is kept at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2014. 
The restorers dismantled the painting.
They repaired the cracks in the board by inserting pieces of wood into the board.
Then they put a product against insects that eat wood. 
They cleaned the painting from the yellowed paint.
They have eliminated the old grouting (layer of plaster and glue that serves to fill the paint gaps). 
They made new grouts. 
They painted the grouts with paint colors and watercolors. 
The restorers painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
In the end they cleaned the frame and gilded the parts without gilding with gold leaf and watercolors. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

The painting was the subject of conservation and restoration work on the occasion of its installation at the new headquarters in the Manica Nuova of the Palazzo Reale in Turin (2014). The restoration was accompanied by a multispectral diagnostic campaign and photographic documentation to investigate some of the technical characteristics of the work.

Restoration

The intervention began with the operations on the support by removing the traverse system, the additions (butterflies, rectangular elements, then replaced with wooden dowels) and the glue residues. Regular traces have been opened along the orders, filled with wooden wedges inserted with fibers parallel to that of the boards. In addition, transient wooden bridges were applied for the realignment of the margins. A layer of permethrin was then spread to prevent biotic attacks, the wooden additions of the verse were chromatically intoned and a spring frame was applied. 
A chemical cleaning was performed on the pictorial film to selectively remove the surface paint. In agreement with the Works Management, it was decided not to remove the repainting of the background, while those at the junctions between the boards were eliminated. Subsequently, the plastering was also removed, thus facilitating the realignment of the boards, and new ones were carried out in imitation of the surface. Finally, the new fillers have been chromatically integrated with watercolor and varnish colors and a final protective varnish has been applied to the surface.
The frame was cleaned of deposits and the decoese preparation and gilding scales were consolidated. Finally, the gaps were stuccoed and the gilding was reintegrated with a red bolus brush and application of gouache gold leaf in the larger parts and with watercolor colors in the smaller ones.