17-TE-2009_Venaria Reale, Reggia, C. Dauphin, Equestrian portrait of Carlo Emanuele II with his son Vittorio Amedeo II, inv. R 6748 (ownership of Racconigi Castle)

Facilitated description:

 

The equestrian portrait of Charles Emmanuel II with his son Amadeus II is a painting on canvas. 
The painting was made towards the end of 1600.
The painting is kept at the Reggia di Venaria. 
The painting is owned by the Castle of Racconigi. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2009. 
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis and saw the layer under the paint.
In this way they discovered that the two characters on horseback had hats with feathers.
They also saw that the servant in the lower left had a blue dress and not a red dress.
The restorers cleaned the painting of dust. 
Then they eliminated the yellowed paint and the paintings of the old restorations.
They removed the paintings from the last restoration. 
They filled the color gaps with a layer of putty (plaster and glue).
They painted the putty and the ruined paint parts. 
They painted the work to protect it from the sun's rays and dust. 
In the end the restorers cleaned the frame. 
They filled the missing wooden parts with putty. 
They painted the frame to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

The painting, owned by the Castello di Racconigi (Residenze Royali Sabaude - Regional Directorate of Piedmont National Museums), was granted to the Reggia di Venaria to be exhibited in the permanent visit path.

Restoration

The restoration began with the cleaning of the frame and the verification of the tension. The support has been subjected to the removal of dust and concretions stratified over time through the use of soft bristle brushes and vacuum cleaner. On the pictorial surface, on the other hand, a cleaning was carried out from the non-original substances, from the incoherent deposits of atmospheric particulate, the yellowed paint was thinned and the repaintings were removed. During this phase, inconsistent colors emerged under the head of Carlo Emanuele II, his son and under the coat of the palafreniere. The mapping of X-ray plates and the opening of stratigraphic dowels revealed the presence of feathered headgear for both figures and a blue jacket for the page relating to an intervention to remake the shape of the garments. The seat cover of Carlo Emanuele II, on the other hand, is attributable to a twentieth-century restoration intervention. During the present intervention it has therefore been decided to remove the most recent restoration and to maintain the one with the value of historical testimony.
Subsequently the gaps were grouted, then supplemented with paint color veils, and the abrasions with paint-related pigments were retouched. Finally, a protective paint was sprayed. 
The frame has been the subject of consolidation and cleaning that aimed at removing dust and removing repaintings. The gaps were grouted and treated with gold-like pigments. Finally, a protective was laid out. 

 

Bibliography

F. Varallo, «...it was a very thin ribbon, with which the horse braked». Equestrian portraits, ceremonies and loisir in the Savoy court of the seventeenth century, in Las caballerizas reales y el mundo del caballo, Instituto Universitario «La Corte en Europa» - UAM y Córdoba Ecuestre, 2016, pp. 361-390.