25mc23-TA-2014_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, J. Van Schooten, Portrait of a young woman, inv. 358

Facilitated description: 

 

Portrait of young woman is a painting on wooden table. 
The painting depicts a young woman in dark clothes.
The painter Joris Van Schooten painted the painting in 1633. 
The painting is kept at the Galleria Sabauda in Turin. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2014. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to understand how the painting was made. 
The restorers cleaned the table of dust. 
They put on the table a product against insects that eat wood. 
They removed from behind the painting the wooden planks and butterflies (pieces of wood that are inserted into the board so as not to break it) added during old restorations. 
They inserted pieces of wood into the splits of the board and glue. 
They mounted a new frame.
Then they cleaned the painting and removed the yellowed paint. 
They filled the color gaps with putty (plaster and glue layer). 
They colored the putty. 
In the end, they painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

The panel was the subject of conservation and restoration work on the occasion of the setting up of the Galleria Sabauda 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 cleaning of the wooden support, previously treated with anti-moth. They were then detached the perimeter axes added during extensions of the table in later times (one of the scaling was carried out to adapt the work to the size of another table in pendant Portrait of a woman aged 36 by Nicolaes Eliasz Pickenoy, inv. 68). Subsequently, the central crack was opened, all the additions (butterflies) were mechanically removed and wedges and traces were inserted at the disconnections of the commissions and cracks. The central cracks were then glued, aligning the two boards. Finally, the chestnut wood spring frame was applied and the added elements were chromatically adjusted. 
At the level of the pictorial film, the chemical cleaning of the varnish and the filling of the gaps along the commistures and slits were carried out. It was followed by the chromatic adaptation with watercolor colors, painting, the final glazes with paint colors and a new spray painting.