02mc01-DM-2014_Milano, Pinacoteca di Brera, B. Luini, Venus in the forge of Vulcano, inv. 5520, cat. 135a

Facilitated description:

 

Venus in the Forge of Vulcan is a mural painting (painting done on a wall). 
The painting decorated Villa della Pelucca in Sesto San Giovanni. 
The painting was detached from Villa della Pelucca in 1821-1822 and was put on wooden board.
The painting represents the goddess Venus working the metal together with the god Vulcan. 
Bernardino Luini painted the painting in 1514. 
The painting is kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2014 for an exhibition and for the exhibition of the painting at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
The painting had already been restored at the end of 1900 by the restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon.
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to study the substances present above the painting and the colors used by the artist.
Scientists have also studied the presence of restorations from the past. 
The restorers made a project to repair the cracks in the painting. 
They planned to eliminate the insects that eat the wood from the frame (wooden structure that stands behind the painting and serves to support the painting). 
Eventually they planned to clean the painting, reinforce the parts of color that were peeling off, and fill the parts without color. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

The restoration of Venus in Vulcan's Forge of Luini is part of a project that involved interventions on several detached wall paintings from Villa La Pelucca (Sesto San Giovanni). After the first phase of intervention, the work was exhibited at the Palazzo Reale in Milan at the exhibition Bernardino Luini and his sons (10 April - 13 July 2014) and then returned to the Conservation and Restoration Center "La Venaria Reale" for the completion of operations on the support. After a period of stay in the deposits of the Pinacoteca di Brera, the restored painting was exhibited during the visit.
The current conservation intervention was carried out in compliance with the restoration carried out by Pinin Brambilla Barcilon at the end of the nineties, during which the wooden support was preserved as a historical testimony of the extraction technique of wall paintings.

Restoration

The intervention on Bernardino Luini's mural painting was preceded by a diagnostic campaign aimed at identifying the overlaid substances, the presence of previous touch-ups and restorations (UV analysis), the nature of the pigments (false-color infrared IR-FC) and the adhesive (infrared spectroscopy in Fourier transform - FTIR). After the study and graphic mapping phase, an intervention program was developed that tried to solve the numerous cracks in the support. In addition, the cleaning of the pictorial surface, the disinfestation of the support, the consolidation of the pictorial film and the chromatic integration of the altered touch-ups were performed.