Restoration
Before the start of the latest interventions at the Restoration and Conservation Department of the MNAC, each of the three pieces was in a different state of conservation. On the wooden panel of the baldachin, restored at the MNAC in 1995, some areas of paint had lifted off the support, while there was also encrusted grime, some altered retouches and an oxidised varnish that had darkened the surface.
The beam and the crestwork from the Museu Episcopal de Vic have been dealt with more recently, in preparation for this exhibition. The beam showed signs of xylophagous infestation, the polychrome paintwork was cracked and dirty, while various previous interventions, which had set out to reintegrate elements into the central reliefs and make good the losses in the paintwork, had not only filled the gaps but also, in many places, covered what had survived of the original paintwork. The retouching of the previous intervention must have been done without first cleaning the painted surface and, thus, some errors of interpretation were committed. The darkened blue of the sides of the beam, for example, was misinterpreted as being black. The history |
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of the crestwork must have been different. The paintwork had deteriorated substantially, with some irreparable losses, and had been consolidated with wax. In this case, however, the gaps were left unfilled.
The intervention process consisted of eliminating the insect infestation and consolidating the wooden support, refixing the areas of lifted paint, and a general cleaning. The wax was removed with controlled heat, the varnishes and dirt with solvents and the stucco that covered parts of the originals was eliminated mechanically. The criteria applied with regard to the reintegration of the paintwork was that of conserving, as historical elements in their own right, all the additions that completed the figures in the medallions and retouching the few remaining losses on the baldachin and the beam in an illusionistic way. The crestwork was not reintegrated chromatically, even though part of the original colour was recuperated in the cleaning, since much of the paintwork had been lost and there were important gaps. |
