25mc27-TE-2014_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, F. Cairo, Death of Roman Lucrezia, inv. 378

Facilitated description: 

 

Death of Roman Lucretia is a painting on canvas. 
The painting depicts Lucrezia killing herself after suffering violence.
The painter Francesco Cairo painted the painting in 1633-1635.
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 cleaned the painting of dust and yellowed paint. 
They cleaned up behind the painting. 
They stopped the parts that were coming off. 
They filled the missing color parts with putty (plaster and glue layer). 
They painted the putty with watercolors and paint. 
They painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
Then they cleaned the frame. 
They filled the holes in the wood with stucco and gilded the stucco. 
They eventually inserted an adhesive strip between the frame and the top of the painting to divide them. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The canvas was the subject of conservation and restoration work on the occasion of the installation 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 on the canvas began with the removal by chemical cleaning of the deposits of incoherent greasy dirt and then of the altered paint. The adhesion defects have therefore been resolved with the addition of moisture. Incoherent deposits of atmospheric particulate were removed from the textile support and wooden frame using soft bristle brushes and micro-aspirators, and a protective resin was applied to the pictorial surface. The preparation gaps were then filled and the pictorial reintegration was carried out with watercolor colors for the lowering of the new plastering and with paint colors for abrasions and small stains. Finally, a final protective varnish was sprayed. 
On the frame the flakes of preparation and gilding have been consolidated with injection. Subsequently, the surface was chemically cleaned and the gaps grouted. The reintegration of the deficiencies and abrasions was performed with the application of gouache gold leaf on a layer of brown-red bolus. Finally, a protective varnish was applied, a Teflon strip was inserted on the support bar to avoid rubbing damage to the painting and the strip that made the painting thicker at the top was replaced.