124mc-28-AL-2017_Rome, Quirinal Palace, P. Piffetti, Cassettone, inv. PR 370

Facilitated description: 

 

The chest of drawers is a wooden cabinet with three drawers.
Pietro Piffetti made the chest of drawers between 1740-1750 with different woods, ivory and bronze.
The chest of drawers is kept at the Quirinale Palace in Rome.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the chest of drawers in 2017.
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to study how the inside of the pedestal is made.
The restorers have placed the chest of drawers in the anoxic chamber, a chamber without oxygen that serves to eliminate insects that feed on wood.
They cleaned the cabinet and hung up the raised parts by pressing with bamboo sticks.
They filled the small deficiencies of wood and ivory with materials similar to the original.
They added a subtle color state to make the parts added with the restoration recognized.
They reconstructed some parts of the feet of the furniture at the bottom.
They colored the color deficiencies of the wood with watercolors.
The restorers filled with stucco (plaster and glue) the lack of gilding and colored the stucco with watercolors.
Finally painted the chest of drawers to protect it from the sun's rays and dust.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

The restoration of the Chest of Drawers of the Quirinal Palace was carried out on the occasion of the exhibition Genius and mastery. Furniture and cabinetmakers at the Savoy court between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Reggia di Venaria, Sala delle Arti, 17 March - 15 July 2018). 
Scientific insights have made it possible to analyze the work with computed tomography. Moreover, thanks to the comparison with TACs carried out on other eighteenth-century Piedmontese cabinet-making works, the presence of similar construction methods and similar problems was verified.

Restoration

The work was treated with permethrin and subjected to anti-moth treatment in anoxic chamber for 21 days. The cleaning phase involved the use of different solutions depending on the materials. The threads and smaller areas, on the other hand, have been mechanically cleaned with scalpels and the internal parts through the use of rubbers. The two gold metal applications on the central drawer have been removed and cleaned by immersion. Subsequently, it was carried out the consolidation of the tiles that had lifts and detachments thanks to the help of schimbari frames with bamboo sticks, thus avoiding the use of vices and rings, which due to their size would not have allowed to work in a contextual and simultaneous manner on the entire surface. The additions of wooden inlays were made with essences similar to the originals, while those in ivory were performed with etiquette. To allow the recognizability of the intervention on the back of each webbing, a layer of bismuth has been applied. The integrations of the curls of the support feet have been realized with the technique of wooden tessellation through the assembly of small wooden parallelepipeds, in this way it is possible to guarantee greater stability of the insert to thermo-hygometric variations. The lost sculpted applications, which adorned the lower edges of the artifact, were compensated with linden wood. For some of the additions to the inlays, a watercolour colour reintegration was carried out, which was also used to make the incisions on the ivory. The gilding was supplemented by plastering (loaded with bismuth to make the intervention recognisable) and watercolour retouching, while for the larger gaps, gold leaf was used on mission. Finally, a protective varnish with added microcrystalline wax was applied.

Bibliography

L. Morozzi, Paper 19, in Genius and mastery. Furniture and cabinetmakers at the Savoy court between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (catalogue), Allemandi, Turin, 2018, pp. 224-226.