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.
The scientific laborers of the Venaria Center have done analyses to study how the inside of the pedestal is made.
The restorers have inserted the chest of drawers in the anoxic chamber (room without oxygen that serves to eliminate insects that feed on wood).
They carried out a cleaning (cleaned the chest of drawers from the dirt deposited over time or from the layers of old restorations). 
They consolidated (reinforced) the wooden parts that were detaching by pressing with bamboo wooden sticks.
They filled the small deficiencies of wood and ivory with tiles of materials similar to the original.
The restorers treated the new tiles with a chemical to recognize the parts added during the restoration.
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 lacks of gilding and painted the stucco with watercolors.
In the end they 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 an 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, were mechanically cleaned with scalpels and the internal parts using rubbers. The two golden metal applications on the central drawer have been removed and cleaned by immersion. Subsequently it was carried out the consolidation of the tiles that presented lifts and detachments thanks to the help of unhinged frames (the use of clamps and rings was avoided that would not have allowed to work in a contextual and simultaneous manner on the entire surface). The additions of the wooden inlay were made with essences similar to the originals, while those in ivory were performed with etite. To allow the recognizability of the intervention on the back of each weaving, a layer of bismuth was applied. The integrations of the curls of the support feet were made with the technique of wooden tessellation through the assembly of small wooden parallelepipeds, in this way it was possible to ensure greater stability of the insert to thermo-igometric variations. The lost sculpted applications that adorned the lower edges of the artifact were compensated with lime wood. For some of the inlay integrations, a watercolor chromatic reintegration has been carried out. 
The shortcomings of the gilding were plastered (loaded with bismuth for the recognition of the intervention) and retouched with aquarello, while for the larger gaps gold leaf was used per mission. Finally, a protective varnish with 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.