25mc43-TE-2014_Turin, Galleria Sabauda, R. Mantovano, Assunta, inv. 900

Facilitated description:

 

The Assumption is a painting on canvas. 
The painting represents the Madonna (also called the Assumption) rising into heaven among the angels.
The painter Rinaldo Mantovano painted the painting in 1528-1564.
The painting is part of a larger painting consisting of two paintings representing God and the Madonna. 
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 painting from the paintings of the old restorations. 
They kept only the paintings made during the 1800's on the angel's face to the right. 
They filled the color gaps with a layer of putty (plaster and glue). 
They painted the stucco with small dashes to make the parts added during the restoration recognizable. 
In the left part of the painting the restorers discovered the figure of a woman under the paintings of the sky.
Together with those responsible for the conservation of the work, the restorers decided not to eliminate the parts of the sky that covered the woman because the woman was not part of this painting.
Eventually they painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

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 an opportunity to study the executive technique and compare it with The eternal father, another painting by Mantovano preserved in Savoy and upper element of the same altarpiece of which it is part The Assumption.

Restoration

The intervention began with the revision of the cleaning carried out in 2008, thinning the repainting residues and the altered touch-ups. During this cleaning phase, a cartouche very similar to that observed in the lunette of the Eternal Father. Instead, the varnish shots of the lower part of the work were left, which concealed the figure of a possible Virgin, as there was no consistency between the two representations. Subsequently, the plastering of the gaps of pictorial film in imitation of the surface was carried out. The chromatic reintegration was then performed on the grouting and on the deepening dowels with glazes of tempera colors, while on the grouting with vertical watercolor hatching. Finally, a first layer of protective varnish was applied, touch-ups were made with varnish coatings and an additional layer of protective varnish was sprayed.