08mc02-TA-2015_Venaria, Royal Palace, Portrait of Matilda of Canossa, inv. 720 (ownership of the Royal Museums of Turin)

Facilitated description:

 

The portrait of Matilda of Canossa is a painting on wood made in about 1550.
Represents Countess Matilda of Canossa in profile.
The painting is kept at the Reggia di Venaria.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the sculpture in 2015.
The restorers placed the painting in an anoxic chamber, an oxygen-free chamber that serves to eliminate wood-eating insects.
They covered the holes with stucco (plaster and glue).
They colored the putty with watercolors.
They studied all the deformations of the table.
In the end they put the painting in a clima-frame (a special container that isolates the painting from the outside air and does not deform it).

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Conservative intervention

The portrait of Matilde di Canossa is owned by the Galleria Sabauda and is on loan to the Reggia di Venaria for exhibition during the visit.
The table has been placed in an anoxic chamber for a disinfestation. The support has been subjected to a small intervention of preventive conservation because on the underside there is a wooden strip, probably inserted in a previous intervention, due to unsuitable tensions. Two small incisions were then made to loosen the resistance on the table movements. In addition, micro grouting of the gaps were carried out at the transverse cracking, then pictorially integrated with watercolor colors. The graphic surveys were then elaborated to document the degree of deformation of the tables before their insertion into the climate-frame. This type of container, inserted under the frame of the paintings, is used to obtain isolation from the outside air and to monitor and record variations in the support and the degree of loading. Finally, the boards were inserted into the clima-frame by the Arterìa company.