20mc06-AL-2014_Castle, Moncalieri, G. Capello, Queen's Bed

Facilitated description: 

 

The Queen's bed is a four-poster wooden bed (bed with fabric cover). 
Gabriele Capello made the bed in 1852-1853. 
The bed is kept at the Castle of Moncalieri. 
The La Venaria Reale Conservation and Restoration Centre restored the bed for the first time in 2008 and for the second time in 2014.
The restoration was done after the fire of 2008 when some rooms of the Castle of Moncalieri were burned.
The wooden parts of the bed had damage caused by the water used to put out the fire and the collapse of the ceiling.
The bed was covered with soot (dust caused by the fire) and had many fractures.
The restorers dismantled the bed and took it to the workshops in Venaria.
They have done a conservative restoration, that is, that lets you see the signs of the fire without reconstructing the missing parts.
The restorers cleaned the bed.
They repaired the fractures and inserted a plastic support into the crown at the top. 
They gilded the parts without gilding and painted the stucco parts (plaster and glue) uncovered.
In the end they reassembled the bed with a support system that serves to reduce the weight of the cover at the top. 

 

 

 

 

Abstract of the intervention: 

 

Restoration

The restoration of the four-poster bed of the Queen's Bedroom of the Castle of Moncalieri is part of the restoration carried out on the furnishings of the apartment of Vittorio Emanuele II after the fire of 2008. A first disassembly of the canopy bed was carried out by the Centre in 2008.  
The boiserie of the bed had several damages caused by the water used to extinguish the fire and by the collapse of the ceiling. In particular, the crown on the top of the canopy was affected by deposits of soot, deadesioni and fracturing. 
The canopy was then dismantled and taken to the laboratories of the Venaria Centre. The intervention was conservative in order to allow the damage suffered by the fire to be clearly read and to be in line with the ‘evocative’ restoration undertaken for the Queen’s Bedroom. The wooden parts were cleaned of soot and deposits. The detached parts have been reattached and the fractures of the stems that support the plumes reinforced with walnut wood pins. To support the crown of the top, a plexiglass pin has been inserted. The aesthetic presentation was carried out in a differentiated way: the stitches with gypsum preparation and exposed rabbit glue have been retouched with watercolor; the golden areas were compensated using mica, where even the chalky preparation was lacking it was decided to leave the wood exposed. 
Finally, before the refurbishment in the relevant room it was necessary to create a new bracket to anchor the iron tie rods useful to unload the weight of the front of the canopy. 

 

Bibliography

M. Cardinali, R. Genta, P. Luciani, A. Minì, V. Tasso, C. Tricerri, M.C. Visconti, The four-poster bed of the queen of the Castle of Moncalieri: Safeguarding and conservative recovery experience after the 2008 fire, in Lo stato dell’Arte 15, XV Congresso Nazionale IGIIC, conference proceedings, Bari 2017, pp. 165-174.