25mc22-TE-2014_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, P. Neefs, Interior of the Catholic Church, inv. 319

Facilitated description:

 

Interior of catholic church is a painting on canvas. 
Peter Neefs the Younger painted the painting between 1620-1675. 
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 have dismantled the painting from the frame (wooden structure that stands behind the painting and serves to support the painting). 
They put the painting on a special table that uses moisture and pressure to eliminate the folds of the canvas. 
They put a canvas behind the painting to protect it.
They cleaned the painting from the yellowed paint and old restoration paintings. 
They filled the color gaps with putty (plaster and glue layer). 
They painted the plastering with watercolors. 
The restorers painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
Then they cleaned the frame. 
They filled the wood holes with stucco and gilded the stucco with gold leaf. 
They eventually put an adhesive strip between the frame and the painting to space them out. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration

The intervention aimed to restore the flatness of the canvas and to resolve the detachments of the support fabric on the edges. The painting was then dismantled from the frame, subjected to moisture and placed on the table at low pressure to flatten the deformations. Synthetic fabric bands have been inserted on the perimeter edges to facilitate anchoring to the frame. The frame has been cleaned and covered with a synthetic fabric to protect the original textile support.
At the level of the pictorial film, the altered surface paint has been removed and the pictorial integrations of the areas of the edge extensions (the painting is resized on all four sides by a previous restoration intervention) have been agreed with the original. In addition, the repaintings of the area of the overflowing extensions on the original have been removed by scalpel. The painting was then painted and the gaps were grouted. Finally, the abrasions and old grouts were balanced with paint colors and a UV-protective was sprayed. 
A surface cleaning was carried out on the frame and an anti-moth product was applied. Subsequently, the gaps were filled and the camouflage was reintegrated with gold leaf consumed and coated for the larger plasterings and with gold in shell for the smaller ones. Finally, a strip of Teflon was applied to the support plate to avoid abrasions in the painting and a final protective was applied.