D02mc04-TE-2017_Milano, Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, M. A. Giussani Valli, Z. Rossi, Portrait of a gentleman, inv. 1314

Facilitated description: 

 

Portrait of a Gentleman is a painting on canvas. 
The painters Maria Antonia Giussani Valli and Zaccaria Rossi painted the painting in 1760-1761. 
The painting depicts a man in a red jacket. 
The painting is kept at the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana in Milan. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2017. 
The restoration students participated in the restoration. 
Thanks to the restoration, the restorers have discovered the correct name of the painter Maria Antonia Giussani Valli. 
The restorers cleaned the painting of dust, yellowed paint and repaintings. 
They have removed the paper lining (paper layer that is behind the painting and serves to reinforce the painting). 
They removed the folds from the canvas. 
Hannno inserted pieces of canvas into the tears. 
The restorers filled the color gaps with stucco (plaster and glue layer). 
They painted the putty.
Eventually they painted the painting to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

The restoration was carried out as part of an ordinary teaching project with students of the degree course in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage (a.y. 2016-2017, 2017-2018). The painting is attributed to Maria Antonia Giussani, who created the first version of the work (1760), and to Zaccaria Rossi, to whom we owe the reconstruction of the face of the effigy (1761). Thanks to the X-ray it was possible to observe the signs of the original face below the reconstruction of Zaccaria Rossi.

Restoration

The intervention made it possible to deepen the knowledge of the artifact, from the historical and artistic point of view, correctly attributing the first pictorial phase to the painter Maria Antonia Giussani Valli, whose name on the label painted on the reverse of the canvas in the catalogue had been misinterpreted as male.
Restoration began with the mechanical removal of inconsistent deposits and the chemical removal of consistent deposits. For a better readability of the work, the non-original and altered varnish, the repaintings and the dark oxidized consolidater under the varnish have been removed. The paper lining was therefore eliminated and the reverse was cleaned, the canvas patch was removed at the level of the tear at the head and the planarity was restored with moisture. The work was then released from the frame, which had a strip applied to the lower ruler to increase the height. After the cleaning and smoothing of the perimeter areas, the canvas inserts were applied at the gaps. The plastering and consolidation of the support in the low-pressure diner were then carried out. The painting was then tensioned on a new frame, the stuccoing of the edges and the aesthetic return with watercolor and paint colors were performed. Finally, a final protective varnish was sprayed.