Instruments

Tramonto

Van Gogh’s Sunset in Montmajour: never say never

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A captivating and surprising story, as intriguing as a noir novel by Michel Bussi. The story of a rejected Van Gogh, then fortunately recognized thanks to the precious work of the experts

The story of this work begins in 1908, when an industrialist, the Norwegian Christian Nicolai Mustad, heir to a well-known dynasty that in 1832 created the largest fishing industry in the world, bought a painting as an original by Vincent van Gogh .

The purchase was recommended to him by the art historian Jens Thiis, who that year was elected director of the National Museum of Oslo, therefore with the support of an authoritative voice. The success of the unfortunate Dutch painter in those years was now spreading, and Christian Mustad was very satisfied with his purchase, so much so that he placed it in the place of honor of his home.

But the dream was shattered when the collector was told that the painting was not a Van Gogh original but someone else’s work. It is not known who was the bearer of this unfortunate truth: whether, as the family recounts, the French ambassador to Sweden visiting the Mustad home or rather, according to scholars, the Norwegian consul in Paris, Auguste Pellerin, one of the greatest collectors of Impressionists of the time, especially Monet and Cezanne.

Christian Nicolai Mustad did not take this revelation well, indeed, his disappointment was such that, having removed the painting from its place of honor, he confined it to his attic, where it remained until his death in 1970.

With the execution of the inheritance, the painting finally reappeared and was sold by the heirs to a private collector. Not convinced of the downgrade to anonymous, but rather certain of the original authorship, the new owner took it to the Van Gogh Museum in 1991 to have the painting authenticated, but the museum replied, with an official reason, that the painting was not an original Van Gogh mainly because it was not signed.

The sentence seemed without appeal. In retrospect, we can hypothesize that perhaps there were more elements that led to that verdict, among which there could have been the “transitional” character of the work within Van Gogh’s production, with a technique different from the other works painted immediately after.

It was a terrible response from the museum but luckily the owner did not get rid of the painting, or, worse still, did not destroy it, as some authentication committees require today following an opinion of falsehood.

Fortunately, as other authentication committees do, it did not happen that the Amsterdam museum indelibly marked the painting as a forgery.

So the owner took back the work and waited, persisting in his research, until 2011, when he recklessly brought the painting back to the Van Gogh Museum. And this time the museum, with great wisdom, decided to reconsider its opinion and agreed to examine the work again.

Not all archives and foundations have the humility and the courage to review their positions, but in this case the Dutch museum decided to conduct a thorough investigation to re-examine the authenticity of the painting, especially since, compared to 1991, it could now count on new and different technical analyses.

The investigation lasted two years, and the story that emerged was completely different. It was decided to use synergies and simultaneously explore the three pertinent research areas, namely scientific analysis of materials, archival research on provenance, and attributive sensitivity.

New analytical metodhs and technologies were instrumental along with the discovery of new letters from Vincent to his brother. And the results were arrived.

The first scientific analysis concerned paint materials, and showed that the artwork had been produced with the same pigments that the painter used at that time. One of these colors, cobalt blue, is decisive in the case of Van Gogh, since he began to use it only in the summer of 1887, thus delimiting a probable period of time of realization, which coincided with Van Gogh’s frequentation of Arles and the its surroundings. This first discovery was really promising, but not enough to prove the authenticity of the painting, since there are fakes that use the same pigments, which is still commercially available.

Then the research  deepened, and a second examination was conducted on the weft of the canvas, compared with an existing database of the wefts and warps of the known canvases used by the artist. The result was that the texture of the analyzed canvas was found to be compatible with one used at least for another Van Gogh painting of the same period. And not only the canvas, but also the preparation applied to the canvas itself turned out to be of the same type in both paintings. Another compatibility result, but not a true guarantee of authenticity.

At the same time, a more historical-artistic way, examining the mysterious number 180 scribbled on the back of the canvas, which incredibly no one had ever considered before. This number actually corresponds to a number in the famous inventory list that Theo van Gogh had compiled of his brother’s works after his death, also noting the title after the number. The painting no. 180 of the list in fact up to that moment had not found a correspondence with a work, so much so that scholars thought it was missing. Here is finally an important clue! The number at that point also allowed scholars to reconstruct the entire chain of provenance of the painting, until then fragmentary but a crucial element in an attribution: the painting had therefore been in the collection of his brother Theo who, however, died in 1901, six months just after Vincent’s death. It was his widow who sold it to the Parisian art dealer Maurice Fabre, from whom the Norwegian industrialist Christian Nicolai Mustad probably bought it in 1908, from whom the whole story began.

Finally, the historical-artistic research has also closed the circle thanks to the very important discovery of a new group of letters from Vincent to his brother, and among these a dated 4th July 1888, in which the artist describes the exact scene of the painting in question: “Yesterday, at sunset, I was on a stony moor, where very small and twisted oaks grow, in the background a ruin on the hill, and cornfields in the valley. It was romantic, it couldn’t be more, à la Monticelli, the sun poured its very yellow rays on the bushes and on the ground, absolutely a shower of gold. And all the lines were beautiful; the whole scene had a fascinating nobility ”.

This beautiful letter allowed scholars to finally confirm the subject, date and place of the painting: “Sunset in Montmajour“, painted on July 3, 1888, the day before the letter. The scene depicted was the moment of twilight in the cornfield landscape of Montamajour in Provence, with the homonymous Benedictine abbey in the distance. It seems that Van Gogh was particularly fascinated by the landscape of Montmajour, with its contrasts between the plateau below and the rocky outcrop, so much so that there are numerous paintings of him with the ruins of the monastery, the olive groves, the rocks that emerge from the hill. This was an ambitious work as evidenced by the large measures (93.3 x 73.3 cm), one of the first painted after his move to Arles, in which he placed great expectations. In fact, with this work he wanted to present himself as a poet among landscape painters and was deeply disappointed to find that, as he himself recognized, he had not been able to overcome certain “obstacles” in a convincing way. So soon the painter put it aside, coming to consider it “a failure”. It is certainly an experimental work by the artist, where he can be seen fighting with haste, which however represents a key work in his path, which just after this began to grow. In fact, it was during his stay in Arles, where he moved on February 20, 1888, that Van Gogh abandoned the impressionist techniques used in Paris to experiment with a free use of color as he himself wrote in April of the same year to his painter friend Bernard :

“I don’t follow any brushing system: I hit the canvas with irregular strokes that I leave as they are. Mixes, pieces of canvas left here and there, totally unfinished corners, second thoughts, brutality: in short, the result is, I am led to believe, rather disturbing and irritating, so as not to make people happy with preconceived ideas in terms of technique [… ] everything that will be ground will participate in a single purplish tone, the whole sky will have a blue hue, the greens will be either blue-green or yellow-green, purposely exaggerating, in this case, the yellow or blue qualities ”.

With all the new evidence gathered, in 2013 the Van Gogh Museum decided to publicly overturn its 1991 attribution, thus undoubtedly attributing the canvas to the great Dutch artist. It was Van Gogh’s first work discovered “from scratch” since 1928 and the museum director, Axel Rüger, described it as “a once in a lifetime experience. The painting had never before been seen in public, nor retouched by professionals. The final paint was missing and it hadn’t even been framed. It’s just a pure thing. It is already a rarity the very fact of being able to add a new piece to the artist’s work but what makes the discovery even more exceptional is that we are faced with a transitional work, a large painting, of the period in which the artist was at the peak of his career. An event of this magnitude had never occurred in the history of the Van Gogh Museum “.

Therefore, on the basis of the fascinating story of this opera, we can definitely say that in life it is sometimes worth a second look!

Filippo Melli
Lavoisier

Facing the Revolution in disguise

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New revelations on Jacques-Louis David's masterpiece portrait

A very recent discovery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York concerns a 1788 oil on canvas by Jacques-Louis David, the Portrait of the Lavoisier spouses, definitely one of the most beautiful neoclassical portraits in the world. Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier belonged to the Parisian aristocracy and became famous as pioneers of modern chemistry.
The painting was paid by Antoine Lavoisier the huge sum of 7,000 French lire (King Louis XVI had paid David himself for the work ‘The lictors bring the bodies of their children to Brutus’ “only” 6,000 lire). On the death of Marie Anne Lavoisier in 1836, the painting was inherited by her granddaughter, Countess of Chazelles, and her heirs a century later put it up for sale. The American magnate John Rockefeller bought it in 1925 and in 1977 it entered the Metropolitan Museum.


The couple is portrayed in their laboratory, he is sitting at his desk, she is standing, and in front of them there are some of the scientific instruments used for their important discoveries. Among the many of them, we can mention that Antoine in 1779 recognized the two parts of the air, baptizing them oxygen and nitrogen, and in 1783 he did the same with hydrogen.
On the armchair on the left you can see a folder of drawings: they are by Marie-Anne who was the illustrator of her husband’s books, whom she married at the age of 13 (he was 27!), Marie-Anne is said to have been a student of David himself.

In excellent conservation conditions, the work was only recently taken to the museum’s restoration laboratory to remove an annoying oxidized and yellowed paint that covered the surface. Careful scientific analyses before the restoration, made it possible to discover that under the visible pictorial layer there were other details that had never been detected

 

Scientific analyses thus allowed us to “see” that the work had originally been composed in a very different way: David had not represented the Lavoisiers as a couple of enlightened scientists, but as rich aristocrats of the Ancien Régime as they were.
The painting was made by David in 1788 to then be exhibited in the Salon of 1789, the year of the Revolution. The situation for the aristocrats became more and more dangerous, and so was it for Antoine, who in addition to being a scientist, had also been a tax collector, a very unloved role.
David therefore decided, almost certainly in agreement with the Lavoisier spouses, to modify their representation in the painting, changing the clothes and the environment around them.

Thanks to scientific analyses it was thus discovered that Marie-Anne was dressed in the fashion of the Ancien Régime, with a huge hat à la tartare with feathers and ribbons,

and the scientist himself was dressed much more elegantly, with gold buttons, seated at a gilded mahogany table, facing the folders of documents that identified him as a tax collector.

In the next version, the one we know, the Lavoisiers are dressed in a decidedly simpler way, more suited to their role as scientists that at that point they wanted to emphasize; this is also the reason for the introduction of scientific instruments and for eliminating the tax papers from the painting.

Unfortunately this change of representation was not enough to save the life of Antoine Lavoisier, who was guillotined, together with his father-in-law, on May 8, 1794. Marie-Anne, who had always visited him during his imprisonment and fought for his release, she saved herself and later rebuilt her life, marrying another scientist in 1804, the physicist Benjamin Thompson, Earl of Rumford, but she insisted throughout her life to keep the surname of her first husband, showing him eternal devotion. She died suddenly in her home in Paris on February 10, 1836 at the age of 78.

For the scientific testing, in the beginning, infrared reflectography was used which allows to see through the first pictorial layers and visualise what is underneath. After this first analysis, XRF mapping was used, which makes it possible to obtain very detailed maps of the chemical elements present on the painting without absolutely damaging it, maps not only of the surface elements but also of the underlying ones.

Once again the modern techniques of analysis have made it possible to obtain very important information, in this case not so much on the health of the painting or on its composition, but rather on the history of the portrayed characters. The scientific results have allowed us to glimpse into the last years of the French scientist’s life, who tried them all to save himself from the revolutionary fury, including modifying the beautiful portrait made by Jacques-Louis David; such information we would never have recovered without the laboratory research.

One last anecdote about Antoine Lavoisier. Scientist to the last, it seems that he had asked one of his servants to verify if the death on the guillotine was really as instantaneous as it was said. Thus Lavoisier, in agreement with the servant, endeavored to blink as long as he could, and the servant noted that the last blink of an eye had been 15 seconds after the beheading. It is an undocumented episode, so it may well be a legend, but what is true is that subsequent experimental tests have essentially confirmed that the brain and facial muscles remain active for several seconds after detachment from the body.

Filippo Melli
garofalo intero

When do you need an InfraRed reflectography?

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The emotion one feels when analysing a painting with infrared reflectography and discovering the preparatory drawing is terrific

Each time it is a unique experience, discovering a secret kept under the layers of painting, a moment that the artist never thought would be revealed.

This is not needed only when the painting … is not finished! Only in this case it is possible to see perfectly with the naked eye which tools were used, how the painting is built, if e.g. a means of carrying over from a composition previously made elsewhere was used or not.

This is the case of the painting here illustrated  and of the painting on the cover, attributed to Garofalo.

The MET of New York a few years ago, proposed an entire exhibition on the unfinished artworks (UNFINISHED). Undoubtedly an interesting path that allows you to understand so much about the modus operandi of each artist.

But when the painting is completed we just have to rely on technology and infrared radiation.

Depending on the type of instrument and in particular the sensor used, there will be a different ability to penetrate inside the pictorial layers and to read any underlying preparatory drawing.

In the past, special cameras and films were used. Currently the best performing sensors are the InGaAs sensors, which are indeed generally mounted on the most advanced instruments. An intermediate way is represented by CCD or CMOS sensors, normally used by digital cameras, even scientific ones.

Infrared reflectography analysis also allows you to identify any underlying paint compositions, reuse of the support and retouching.

Depending on the budget and the result you are looking for, we will be able to suggest which technique is the most suitable for you!

Art–Test has the most varied and most advanced instrumentation. Our quadruple resolution InGaAs scanner achieves unprecedented results. To learn more, read here.

If there is something to discover under your painting, we will find it!

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Is the National Gallery Samson and Delilah a fake?

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“My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size, (…) has ever surpassed my courage“. So wrote about himself Pieter Paul Rubens, also known as “Pietro Paolo” since he had lived in Italy for 8 years and in Italy developed his style and his “trademark”.

Well, yes, you can talk about Rubens using industry terms, as if he was managing a factory, given the incredible organization that he imprinted on his very crowded workshop. In fact, he relied on a atelier with dozens of students that the master guided and directed like an orchestra conductor.

Rubens  was to fascinate the clients with his speeches, then probably made a drawing for them, then a monochrome sketch and then a colored one, all to get their approval. At that point, the sketches passed into the large workshop on the ground floor of his noble home in Antwerp, where the “students” brought back the inventions of the master on the chosen support, canvas or wood, enlarging them, with Rubens sometimes adding only the last retouching.

With this organization of the work, in fact, different types of artworks could be created, from the totally autograph paintings to replicas with a more or less extensive intervention by the master. You could have those painted by him only in some essential parts, and others in which he the simply revised the artwork. The workshop itself produced paintings of very different quality, also depending on who was assigned to the job, and the given subject: from those elaborated from the master’s design to the mere copy.

However, apparently, the famous painting Samson and Delilah that the National Gallery of London bought in 1980 for 2.5 million pounds does not fall into any of these categories, meaning that it is neither an original nor a copy, nor a workshop work. It would simply be a fake, perhaps even make in the 20th century. An Artificial Intelligence algorithm seems to have established it after a very long series of tests, coming to the conclusion that the probability that it is false is greater than 91%! Of course, now there is an open confrontation between scholars and this authentication method, which is based on algorithms specially trained to capture the details of the artists’ style and brushstroke, then evaluated by a sophisticated “convolutional neural network”.

Actually, this “Samson and Delilah” painting is not new to this type of controversy related to the attributions to the Flemish master. Quite the opposite. Since its appearance on the market in Paris in 1929 it has been linked to several names, and the definitive one, Rubens, was proposed by Ludwig Burchard, an expert on the Flemish master, in the 1950s. But when the scholar died in 1960, some unclear documents emerged, according to which Burchard authenticated several works for his own economic advantage.

However, there is a rather detailed report of the studies conducted between 1980 and 1983 by Joyce Plesters, published in the National Gallery Technical Bulletin, which report of an X-ray and numerous microsamples analyzed where no anachronism is found.

What is the credibility of the results obtained with artificial intelligence? Not much, apparently. The National Gallery doesn’t seem very worried by the outcomes of the algorithm, and continues to exhibit the painting as genuine.

Filippo Melli
buddha-bamiyan-1_1434364103

What will they destroy this time?

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Afghanistan: how the nation can defend itself from the iconoclastic fury of the Taliban, including a list of items NOT TO BUY

In Afghanistan, the arrival of the Taliban will bring an abrupt setback to a nation who had seemed to be able to strike a delicate balance.

In addition to the great changes that the numerous restrictions imposed by the new government will inevitably bring, a great threat looms over the numerous archaeological sites and art objects that make up the cultural heritage of a country rich in history. For example the “Bactrian Treasure” a collection of more than 20,000 artifacts, many made of gold, that were found in 2,000-year-old graves at a site called Tillya Tepe in 1978.

Despite 20 years have passed, no one can have forgotten the destruction of the two Buddhas of Bamiyan by the Taliban. There are still discrepancies on what was the motivation, but it is well established that there has been a real abomination against Afghan people and the world’s artistic heritage as well.In 2001 the great tragedy of the destruction of the two imposing statues, declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and dated between the sixth and seventh centuries after Christ, shook all of Europe.

In 2001, thanks to photogrammetry, (an analysis allowing to obtain extremely accurate 3D measurements and reconstructions from photographs taken at different angles), with the help of images taken by tourists, downloaded from the web, it was possible to reconstruct the 3D model of the two statues, and to print some scale copies. Recently, holograms have been projected to recreate the impression that the huge Buddhas had to make on site.

But clearly no one will be able to go back in time.

In anticipation of an awakening of the iconoclastic fury, a project was set to protect the immense, and partly unknown, Afghan artistic heritage. Many art objects belonging to different museum collections have in fact been removed from their seats and hidden in unknown places but so far there is no news of any transfer abroad.

In fact, the AAMD (Association Art Museum Directors) has established several protocols for the protection of cultural heritage even providing, when necessary, that museums of other nations take custody of these objects until the crisis is over.

But already on the third day since they returned to power in Afghanistan, the Taliban blew up the statue of Abdul Azi Mazari, former leader of the Hazara, an Afghan Shiite minority, killed by the Taliban in 1995 and considered a hero of the resistance against the armed group.

ICOMM has published a list of objects at risk on its website.

It is very likely that in Afghanistan culture and heritage will be attacked and annihilated. Without its artistic memory a country will be left unable to renew itself. It will remain blocked; it will probably regress denying itself a motivated and, above all, free future.

Even when such an extreme situation may not arise, the diagnostician, the restorer, the archaeologist, and all other professional roles related to the world of cultural heritage play an important part, as they are the custodians of what has been. Their main task is to preserve, safeguard and disseminate with the aim of transmitting the cultural and artistic legacy of humanity to posterity especially when we could be facing the destruction of masterpieces and archeological sites.

With science and perseverance, we try to find a way not to deprive future generations of the beauty that our ancestors created and were able to admire. We can only condemn with dismay, those who with no scruples whatsoever, annihilate all traces of the past.

Alice Fusco
CONOSCIMI INSTAGRAM

The lost Zaffera technique

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Very precious majolica with relief decorations and a fascinating history

Cintia Gonzales
Alice Fusco

“Those who want to do great things must pay particular attention to details”, as the poet Paul Valéry writes, is what the Tuscan potters did by inventing “zaffera” majolica.

These are ceramics conceived and produced only in some specific areas of the Italian peninsula and in a very short period of time but with such an elegant and particular manufacture, that it determined immediate success. In a short time they replaced the previous majolica on the tables of the richest mansions of the fifteenth century.
Characterized by a two-tone decoration: the pearly white background based on stanniferous glaze and the deep blue decoration, pasty and with glassy reflections, in relief compared to the rest, they were immediately received positively by customers, probably thanks to the completely new decoration patterns, compared to the ornaments of the other majolicas on the market at the time. In fact, it can be said that, although today they are nowadays almost completely unknown and not very present on the market, they have high prices, as they have had historically an important impact, in fact, their presence is not rare, for example in paintings of the period: Beato Angelico who inserts them inside of his great works and undertakes to paint them with great care and attention in the convivial scenes as in “San Domenico and his companions“. But Angelico is not the only one: Bicci di Lorenzo also includes these particular majolica in his tables as in the case of the “Miracle of San Nicola“.


Beato Angelico “San Domenico and his companions” predella of “Coronation of the Virgin” 1430-1432

Bicci di Lorenzo “Miracle of San Nicola” 1433-1435


La Zaffera, which initially established itself in the Florentine and Sienese area, later extended to northern Lazio, Faenza and Umbria. Among all, the ones from Viterbo are the most prestigious ones.
Generally the images depicted are characterized by a complete two-dimensionality, where the shades are completely absent, and a main figure placed in the center, is surrounded by elegant decorations. Rarely the main subject is anthropomorphic, the most popular are dogs and birds, more rarely fish.

Instead, the variety of decorations of the frame is wider: plant and floral inserts, plant shoots, labellum, wolf teeth, droplets and oak leaves with acorns and berries.
In Tuscany, majolicas were mainly made with a completely decorated surface; in Faenza, instead, the decorations were confined within circles made of brown manganese or blue enamel; the Viterbo decoration is always characterized by patterns that develop over the entire surface but thinner and less dense.


 Examples of Faenza majolica (a), Viterbo majolica (b) and Tuscan majolica (c)


The most requested objects, from what can be seen from the various finds, were mostly trunk-shaped cups and mugs with ovoid body and trilobate mouth; the production of plates and trays is less intense, this is probably due to the fact that the relief of the decorations is more appreciable if made on concave surfaces rather than on flat or convex surfaces.
The short production period is attributable to two factors: the high cost of cobalt blue necessary for production and the difficult construction technique that resulted in the production of numerous wastes characterized by little relief and poorly defined decorations.
The blue pigment was laid mixed with a particular loose clay called “barbottina” on the surface previously glazed and cooked, the majolica was then subjected to a second cooking phase in which the decoration would swell while maintaining the basic design.

This last complex phase of production had to be carried out in environments where temperatures of more than about 1000°C would not be reached in order to compensate for the melting and the consequent inevitable casting of cobalt oxide.

However, since they did not have such precise control of the internal temperatures of the furnaces, it often happened to obtain unsaleable products and soon the production costs exceeded the revenues.
This is probably the main reason why it was abandoned after only thirty years and was replaced by the Italian-Moorish majolica, always characterized by a white-blue bichromy but of more immediate and certainly less expensive realization.

Maiolica italo-moresca


Being so few objects available, today even what was then considered waste, has great value.
The characteristics mentioned above such as the cobalt blue decorations with a heightened relief on a white background, the short production time and the difficult execution technique, are safe elements on which to base a diagnostic investigation.
Although it is usual to think of diagnostics mostly linked to the study of paintings, it is certainly extendable to other numerous types of objects and also in the case of ceramics, it allows to distinguish originals from fakes and to date majolica using different techniques of a non-invasive, invasive, micro-destructive or elemental kind.
In the specific case of majolicas, ceramics, porcelains, there are mainly five techniques to which it is advisable to employ to obtain information about their manufacture, history and composition, as illustrated in the posts below: element analysis, microscope, thermoluminescence, XRF, UV fluorescence.

 

blu

Tell me what blue you are and I’ll tell you when you were born (more or less)

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The recent discovery of YInMn Blue, even if the pigment is extremely expensive (€ 148.52 for 40ml), is a joy for artists – always among the first ones to welcome new findings-, but also for art scientists!
In fact, the analysis of the pigments used has always been very useful for establishing the dating and provenance of a painting.
Lapis Lazuli, for example, is a medieval invention. Theophilus who wrote his treaty in 1120, does not mention it: his blue is azurite, while Cennino Cennini knows it well.
But the Lapislazuli loses its purity in oil painting. Therefore it also loses part of its charm and its use reduced over time, as the new medium imposed itself.
However, outside Italy it was already very uncommon. Few, in fact, could afford it. One was Dürer, who however complained a lot about its price (100 times that of the other pigments)!
For centuries, the Azzurri remained luxury items. Smalt and Verditer blue were not expensive, but the only, mild, alternative to the shade of Lapis was Indigo.
The situation changed around 1705, when Prussian Blue was discovered. It had a great success, but it could still not really replace Lapis.


Although Cobalt Blue had been discovered in 1802, it was Goethe, incredibly, who suggested that as blue deposits were found in the Italian lime kilns, and perhaps some similar procedure could be studied to synthesize an artificial Lapis Lazuli.
In 1842, the Société d’Encouragement per l’Industrie Nationale offered a prize of 6,000 francs to whoever produced it first. Once a stable formulation was found, around, 1870 Cobalt blue became the standard blue color, used by everybody.

Nevertheless, even if 1935 brought with it two new pigments: Monastral Blue and Manganese Blue, the perfect blue had not yet been invented.
The painter Yves Klein between 1945 and 1955 turned to a producer, convinced that they could do better. He thus patented the International Klein Blue, where, however, the real novelty is the binder. We now have the new YInMn Blue.

And the history of art continues to go hand in hand with that of technology.

(Anna  Pelagotti)
WhatsApp Image 2020-10-18 at 21.35.38 (1)

Tale of two copies and one thief (a Cardinal)

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When in 1507 the Raphael‘s Baglioni Altarpiece was placed on the altar of San Matteo in the Church of San Francesco al Prato, in Perugia, no one would ever have imagined that about 100 years later Cardinal Scipione Borghese would have craved its possession so much to commission its theft. Robbery that, following the riot of the Perugians, in a few days became a “voluntary donation” by the friars, immediately ratified by Scipione’s uncle, Pope Paul V.

At the time of the crime, in 1608 Raphael’s art, the Baglioni Altarpiece and the subject of the central altarpiece, “The Transport of Christ“, still enjoyed great fortune. Therefore, many copies had been made over the years.

Two of these are now preserved in the National Gallery of Umbria.

Although of the same size (184 × 176 cm), and equal to the original one, which is now in the collection of the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the Perugian copies were made at different times and on different media.

A copy on wood was made in 1554, when the original was still in its initial location, by Domenico Alfani, a friend of Raphael, in collaboration with his son Orazio. The panel was destined to the church of Sant’Agostino, also in Perugia.

The other copy, instead, on canvas, is attributed to Cavalier d’Arpino, and dated 1609, considering that it was commissioned by the cardinal to compensate the city for the deprivation of the original.

On both of these two copies, Art-Test Firenze performed with the Vis-IR scanner Infrared Reflectography on the entire surface. Thanks to the particular flexibility of the instrumentation, and to excellent coordination with the restorers and art historians of the National Gallery of Umbria, we were able to complete the works in just two consecutive days.

The reflectographic campaign, returning the image of the preparatory drawing, will be used by scholars to study the theme of “copies”, evaluating the methods of execution, through similarities and differences between them and with the original, that was also recently investigated and restored. All of this was to be on display at the exhibition, currently canceled for the closing period due to COVID19, entitled “The fortune of Raphael’s Pala Baglioni through its copies”. 

We hope it will be rescheduled soon!

(Emanuela Massa)

lubec

LuBeC 2019: the possible future of Culture: musea as metropolitan hub to resist against barbarism?

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Among fairs dedicated to cultural heritage, Lucca Cultural Heritage (LuBeC), now in its fifteenth edition, has found a specific place. Its original and original vocation is to participate in the debate between public administration and business and to generate concrete actions for a culture that produces not only economic but also social results.

The landscape of public cultural heritage management is inevitably changing and LuBeC focuses on this transformation in different areas.

The increasing digitization, with new tools and ways of management, is addressed in the “digitalization, archive and open data” area.

The reflections proposed in the other spaces, examine the need to adapt to this change and manage it in the best way, guaranteeing its economic, social and environmental sustainability and promoting public participation in cultural activities.

It becomes relevant to question how much the culture industry can be incisive on the economic and social balance of a city or how much making everything “usable” to tourists, especially in some places already saturated, won’t let citizen feel extraneous to their territory. This reflection inevitably binds the vision of a museum as a cultural hub and a center of social education and therefore a place in which to form the conscience of citizens. This, in particular, could be the mission of civic museums. The defense of the territory and its enhancement inexorably pass through the shared knowledge of its history. An objective that can be achieved using, for example, new tools such as gamification, which are appealing, especially for new generations.

All the themes proposed in this edition are also in line with the European Agenda for Culture. LuBec will thus contribute to the international debate on what are the synergies to be implemented to contribute to the smooth functioning of culture as a fundamental cog in gears of society.

The LuBec awaits us on 3 and 4 October. The program and info on inscriptions at this link: https://www.lubec.it/en/exhibiting-lubec-digital-technology.html

lubec
Which came first the egg (tempera) or the antependium?

Which came first the egg (tempera) or the antependium?

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How did polyptichs appear? Was the Byzantine Icon to move to the altar, or was it the antependium? Why from preparing the wooden panels with parchment and two layers of gesso, gilding became limited to frames? What are the roads followed by icons and art objects in their passage from East to West? How was the Platonic-Byzantine concept of the image received in Europe and how was it transferred into the more Aristotelian sphere of Western medieval culture?
“Paths to Europe, From Byzantium to the Low Countries”, edited by Bernard Coulie and Paul Dujardin, Silvana Editoriale, just published, 53rd  volume of the Biblioteca d’arte series, tries to answer some the these questions and it is also the summary of a conference held in BOZAR, Brussels in January 2015.
Inside the volume, the article “Under the Gold: a Database of Underdrawings and Material Analyses on Sienese Paintings. Connections and Dissimilarities in Painting Techniques across Centuries and Countries”, presents the peculiarities of Sienese paintings between the twelve and the fourteen centuries. Changes in style but also in the techniques and materials used, emerge from the analysis of the Art-Test database on IR reflectographies, X rays and chemical analyses on 100 paintings of Pinacoteca Nazionale of Siena. The passage from the archetypical, not to be changed model of the Byzantine icon to a free hand spontaneous underdrawing, from the gold background imitating goldsmith and from the 7 colours of the Palatinus codex to the oneiric pinks of the Sienese paintings is illustrated. Presenting also how X rays can be studied to understand the function of a painting on wooden panel, the paper exemplifies how changes in style and the messages that the paintings were to convey are closely connected with the evolution of the techniques employed to physically make them.

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