55mc17-DM-2014_Milano, Pinacoteca di Brera, B. Luini, Putto vendemmiante, inv. 5531

Facilitated description: 

 

Harvest Putto 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.  
Bernardino Luini painted the painting in 1514. 
The painting is kept at the Pinacoteca di Brera in Milan.
Restorer Pinin Brambilla Barcilon restored the painting in the late 1900s.
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the painting in 2014.
Scientists at the Venaria Center did scientific analysis to study the substances present above the painting and the colors used by the artist.
The restorers placed the painting in the anoxic chamber (room without oxygen) to eliminate the insects that eat the wood. 
They replaced some wooden parts behind the painting added during past restorations. 
They inserted springs into the crossbars (vertical wooden axes behind the painting) to make the board more flexible. 
They treated the board with a special type of wax to protect the wood.
After the restorers worked on the front part of the painting. 
They stopped the parts of color that were peeling off. 
They cleaned the painting of dust.
They filled the colorless parts with putty (plaster and glue layer).
They painted the putty with watercolors.

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention:

 

Restoration 

The intervention on Harvest putto is part of the extraordinary maintenance of the works from Villa La Pelucca (Sesto San Giovanni), a series of wall paintings detached from Stefano Barezzi and became part of the collection of the Pinacoteca di Brera. This project has been carried out in compliance with the numerous restorations carried out on the paintings, including that of Pinin Brambilla Barcilon in the late 1990s.
The main objective was the stabilization of the wooden supports, in fact, the transport of the works on board has led to serious degradation of the pictorial film, caused by the sensitivity of the wooden support to thermo-hygrometric variations. In addition to these damages, attacks of xylophagous insects and defects due to the structural stability of the supports were detected due to the poor quality of the wood used.
The following interventions were carried out on behalf of the support: disinfestation in anoxic chamber, dismantling of the frame and crossbars, removal of glue residues, replacement of dovetail crossbars with wooden pins, compensation for the break-in near the left crossbar, filling of gaps, treatment with microcrystalline wax, realization of a crossing that allows the natural spread of the table.
On the film we tried to restore a homogeneous reading, operating in compliance with previous interventions. Consolidations of the adhesion defects of the pictorial material were therefore carried out, a superficial cleaning (dry cleaning) with rubbers and the removal of residues with brushes and vacuum cleaner. In addition, the previous retouching and grouting have been maintained and the recent slits and flicker holes have been grouted and integrated with watercolor colors. Finally, the yellowing was attenuated with the use of colored pencils.

 

Bibliography

M. Cardinali, P. Luciani, A. Minì, Conservation interventions on complex wooden supports: some application cases faced during the restoration of the frescoes by Bernardino Luini torn from Villa La Pelucca and four panels with chinoiserie from the Quirinale Palace, in The State of the Art, XIV National Congress IGIIC (Accademia Di Belle Arti di L’Aquila, 20/22 October 2016), Nardini, 2016.