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April 13 2022

Let’s meet in Florence!

The 8th Edition 2022 of the Florence Art and Restoration Fair (on site and online) and the 3rd Edition of the International Conference Florence Heri-Tech (on site) will be held simultaneously from 16 to 18 May 2022: a national and international event, dedicated to the whole world of conservation and cultural heritage.

During the three days of the Florence Art and Restoration Exhibition, visitors will have free access, upon registration, and attend the rich calendar of events (on site and online).

Within the events at the Salone there will also be a conference in which the first reflections on the ongoing restoration and the first investigations of the painted Cross by the Master of San Lucchese will be presented.

The winners of the Friends of Florence Prize will also be revealed, for a restoration project of a Florentine work.

And certainly much more!

We will be there and we are waiting for you. In the next newsletter we will tell you more!

Sections of the Parthenon Marbles at The British Museum. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

April 13 2022

Who owns public art?

Anna Uncategorized 0

the British Museum refuses to allow scans of the Parthenon marbles. Resulting replicas could be offered to them if they consented the marbles to be returned to Greece

Let’s imagine you want to study a work of art currently in the collection of a state or municipal museum.

Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) have been opened over the centuries to allow for the sharing of public cultural heritage and play a vital role in the communities they serve. They provide resources and services for entertainment, education, research and knowledge advancement and stimulate creativity and innovation in the service of global (sustainable) development.

By making their collections usable, offering their scientific, historical and socio-cultural resources, both locally and online, they enable citizens, generation after generation, to build a conscious, informed, better future for themselves and their communities.

However, it proves often difficult to go one step further; and making collections truly openly accessible, shareable and reusable by the public.

Have you tried to ask for a totally non-invasive analysis for study and dissemination purposes?

The works of art then seem to become no longer public but the property of a director who vetoes 99 times out of 100. Why? Certainly not for problems related to the safety of operations, when these are in fact totally non-invasive. It seems more like the desire to maintain a certain monopoly.

The Institute of Digital Archeology (IDA), for example, has regularly submitted, for years now, the request to the British Museum in London, to perform a 3-D scan of the Parthenon sculptures preserved in them, but with no success.

The request, which the British Museum would neither confirm nor deny receiving, is based on the UK’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), passed in 2000, which provides for public access to information held by public authorities.

But the museum seems to shilly-shally. The IDA lawyer then took a legal step in an attempt to force the museum to allow the scan to be performed.

IDA is a firm supporter of the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Athens, as requested by Greece for years.

The ultimate goal of the scans is in fact to create “replicas” that could replace the sculptures inside the British Museum, leaving the originals to be sent back to Athens.

The Parthenon sculptures, also called the Elgin Marbles, were in fact removed from the Acropolis in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, when he served as Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which then occupied the Greece.

Many other museums are taking steps in this direction, returning the works to the communities of origin. The world is waiting for the British Museum to respond.

April 13 2022

Rediscover beauty

Art Test Uncategorized 0

On March 26, after a careful restoration, the Annunciation by Giovanni Balducci returned to its place in the Church of Santo Jacopo and Filippo in Scarperia.

It is back to shine and enchant again, thanks to an accurate restoration that made use of the analyses byArt-Test, this large painting on wood of the late sixteenth century, which had become almost illegible with the passage of time.

It is an Annunciation, attributed by the scholar Bruno Santi to a pupil of Naldini: Giovanni Balducci known as Cosci, an author perhaps little known today, but certainly appreciated at his time. He was indeed entrusted with some of the frescoes in the large cloister of Santa Maria Novella in Florence and some artworks in Rome in San Giovanni in Laterano and San Giovanni dei Fiorentini. After that he moved to Naples called by Cardinal Alfonso Gesualdo, where he ended his career and his life.

The Annunciation is set in the bedroom of the Virgin, where a monumental four-poster bed acts as background, with an unusual deep green curtain, and majestic architectural elements, which recall a Florentine stately home, with decorations in pietra serena, and a marble floor, painted by rigorously applying the rules of geometric perspective.

Also noteworthy are the Mannerist iridescences of the garments, which also re-emerged thanks to the restoration, and the detail of the basket with the sumptuous embroidery works.

During the restorations, last July, Art-Test to analyze this painting brought its instruments in that wonderful corner of Tuscany that is Mugello. The restoration site was set up by the restorer Stefano Garosi at the Compagnia di San Piero a Sieve, where several works had to be investigated. Between them, there was this large table, placed upside down, of which one could only partially sense the beauty.

Garosi showed us the conservation history of the work, the restorations of the past, the damage of a careless cleaning that had irreparably damaged the pictorial film and all the restoration phases already carried out to secure the work, remove the old repainting and consolidate the color.

Everyone should have the opportunity to discuss the characteristics of a painting by taking advantage of the great experience of those involved in its restoration. Each work reveals a very interesting story.

The reflectographic diagnostic campaign entrusted to Art–Test was intended to investigate whether there was an underlying compositional system, if there were pentimenti, and ultimately, the genesis of the work.

Dettaglio della riflettografia InfraRossa eseguita sull'opera Detail of the Infra-Red reflectography performed on the work

At the inauguration, in front of a large audience, we explained that reflectography is a bit like the time machine, which takes us back in time and allows us to see what only the artist, and those living at his time could see.

We told how in this painting it was clear that the painter had a great mastery of drawing, which was done with a brush and using carbonaceous material. Some “pentimenti” are visible, related to the organization of spaces. In fact, the figure of the Virgin appears to be shifted slightly to the right today compared to the first thought, and her right shoulder, for the viewer, has been resized in the execution phase. Likewise also the left shoulder of the Angel Gabriel. In the foreground on the right, while the basket was perhaps painted in a last moment when the finished base can be glimpsed underneath. Perhaps it was added for a wish of the client.

Dettaglio del cestino in riflettografia InfraRossa

Detail of the basket in InfraRed reflectography

To illustrate the artistic language was prof. Marco Pinelli who, in a few minutes, gave a clear and comprehensive picture of the stylistic references of the work, Tuscan Mannerism and the work of Andrea del Sarto.

The restorer Stefano Garosi illustrated the phases of the restoration and explained how images provided by Art-Test were useful to him, as details were visible that were not accessible to the naked eye.

The Mugello area is rich in art and is not new to restorations which include diagnostic investigations, there is a great attention to the area also due to the officers of the superintendency, in this case Dr. Jennifer Celani, and an always generous support by the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze.

It is a synergistic work that gives excellent results. At a time when we repeat like a mantra that “beauty will save the world” we should ask ourselves if the world will be able to save beauty.

We are confident of this, as long as there are those who will care and will protect art from the natural corruption of time and often from human neglect.

(Emanuela Massa)

April 12 2022

Capital of Italian Culture for 2022: Procida

Emanuela Uncategorized 0

On April 9th, with the delays due to the pandemic, a historic year for this small island was inaugurated!

Here comes the hope that thanks to culture, which will never isolate anyone, there will be a new Renaissance.

Minister Franceschini in his greeting speech underlined the role of culture as a “field of dialogue”.

Art is a message, art is an expression of the beauty of man.

There are many initiatives this year, here is the link to the official website with the program.

One more reason to visit Procida, where “culture does not isolate”.

April 12 2022

Interview to Lucia Dori

Emanuela Uncategorized 0

Lucia discovered restoration as a child, and was one of the first students of the courses held by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence.

Lucia Dori is one of the best known restorers in Florence. Her workshop, which she shares with her brother Andrea, deals with the conservation and restoration of paintings on canvas and wood, wooden sculptures, monumental frames and globes.

In recent years, Lucia has also embarked on a career as a teacher at the Brera Academy in Milan, where she is responsible for the course of “Restoration of artefacts painted on textile support 1“.

Lucia, how did you become a restorer? What was your training path?

My father, a great lover of art, took me to the “Firenze Restaura” exhibition in 1972.

In the spring of 1977, during a visit to my grandparents in Reggello, I told my cousin about my passion for restoration, which I knew very little about. He told me that he had a restorer friend: Gastone Tognaccini.

Gastone explained many things to me about the world of restoration and told me that exactly that year for the first time the Opificio della Pietre Dure would be launching a competition to enter their Higher Education School. He offered to help me prepare for that, then I attended his workshop and that of the restorers Paola Bracco, Sergio Taiti, Ottavio Ciappi. As for my training on drawings, I was followed by Leonardo Passeri, I was his first ever student.

in November 1977 I passed the competition and immediately afterwards I started the Opificio restoration school, and I graduated after specialisation in 1981.

Now let’s talk about your work, with Art-Test there have been many opportunities for collaboration, which one do you want to remember?

Among the works in which I made use of Art–Test services, I like to remember the Annunciation by Alesso Baldovinetti, because it is a painting that really touched my heart. The investigations were very important because they revealed Baldovinetti’s very particular drawing methods who used direct engraving for everything, even for the most descriptive details such as the feathers of the angel’s wings or the particular red finish of the angel’s robe that overturns the succession of layers with the cinnabar put on top of the red lacquer.

Alesso Baldovinetti, Annunciazione, Uffizi — Alesso Baldovinetti, Annunciation, Uffizi

Precisely at that juncture, the synergy that must always exist between the restorer, the diagnostician and the art historian was fully manifested. When these professionals interact harmoniously with each other, collaborate, the result I must say is always excellent.

In general, what are the most common problems encountered during a restoration in which diagnostics are most useful? And what are the advantages for a restorer to combine a targeted diagnostic campaign with a restoration project?

During a restoration we can encounter multiple problems and diagnostics is very important when there are repaintings, extensive retouching, large gaps, plastering and when you are not sure to find original color under the visible pictorial layers. Diagnostics is very important for the knowledge of the work, the materials, the painter, his modus operandi.

For me, every painting under restoration should have the possibility of having a diagnostic campaign that investigates it, but unfortunately it is not always possible because often the funds for the restoration are not sufficient for the investigations.

You have been working in this field for many years, what changes have you noticed, for example in terms of customers, prices and clients?

Several changes have taken place and are still ongoing. Especially since the Public Procurement Code came into force. Before, there was a relationship of trust with the client and the art historian was not obliged to ask for more cost estimates for a restoration project. With the new regulations this is no longer possible and certainly leads to a correct circularity of the work, or rather to assign the restorations to a greater number of operators. This circularity, however, unfortunately has led, in my opinion, also to restorations not being carried out “in a professional manner”. The mechanism of selection is no longer based on the quality of planning and intervention, but on purely economic terms where the lowest offer is preferred. In fact, since the restorer’s work is not standardized, i.e. not identical regardless of who carries it out, imposing this type of practice does not often correspond to the choice of the best restorer and the best restoration project, in terms of quality.

In recent years, the volume of work from private clients has decreased. Our work, however, is almost always based on public clients, so, as already explained, the distinction nowadays depends on the methods of choice indicated by the new regulations.

Michelangelo-Buonarroti-A-nude-young-man-after-Masaccio-and-two-figures-behind-pen-and-two-shades-of-brown-ink-33-x-20-cm-copyright-Christies-images-limited-680x1024

April 12 2022

A new Michelangiolo?

Filippo Melli Uncategorized 0

A drawing at auction in Paris in May 2022

Great news are shaking the world of art collecting: next May, in Paris, Christie’s will put on sale, during the auction “Maîtres anciens et du XIXe siècle”, a rare early drawing by Michelangelo, which could reach the incredible figure of 30 million euros. Previously, the drawing was attributed to an artist close to Buonarroti, but it is now considered one of the few original drawings still left in private hands, in total less than 10!

This unique and beautiful drawing depicts a naked man standing between two figures, and is supposedly one of the very first nudes, still existing, of the Florentine master. It is evidently taken from the scene of the “Baptism of the neophytes” frescoed by Masaccio on the walls of the Brancacci Chapel in Florence. Like all of Michelangelo’s very few drawings, copying masterpieces of the past, it dates back to the beginning of his career.

Masaccio, The Baptism of the neophytes, Brancacci Chapel, Florence

The matter of Michelangelo’s drawings in general, but of his early ones in particular, is an ancient and long-debated one.

Vasari already tells that the artist himself, before dying in Rome in 1564, had burned “a large number of drawings, sketches and cartoons made by his own hand, so that no one would see the hard work he had endured and the ways of trying his ingenuity, in order not to appear if not perfect “.

It is therefore also for this artist’s desire for perfection that his graphic work was immediately rare and sought after, so much so that Leonardo Buonarroti, his nephew and heir, was only able to buy a group of drawings on the Roman market after his uncle’s death at a high price.

It is known that Michelangelo always refused to raise pupils. He only resorted to help when he could not do without it, as in the New Sacristy, in Florence, but he always relegated these aids to mere executors.

His refusal to accept a dimension of discipleship lies in his absolute reluctance to acknowledge that he himself had masters other than some great artists of the fourteenth and fifteenth century tradition, such as Giotto, Ghiberti, Donatello, Masaccio, Jacopo della Quercia, on whose works he had hard practiced and that he had no difficulty in admitting how much they had counted for his training.

In fact, his few early drawings that he himself saved from destruction are precisely taken from the works of those masters, such as this drawing presented now by Christie’s.

The copies of Michelangelo’s ancient masters are very personal: look in particular at the chiaroscuro, obtained by means of a dense grid hatching, which follows the trend of the protrusions and recesses and which vitalizes the surfaces, exactly as he does on his marbles with a chisel and the gradine, where he leaves the marks of the instruments visible.

For Michelangelo it was only with the study of nature that beauty could be achieved, and the artist had to imitate nature; by choosing the best details, the artist is able to create a beauty superior to that created by nature itself, and that is why the artist in his mind conceives an ideal of beauty.

This ideal, however, is not human creation, but, according to the Neoplatonic thought, developed at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent that the young Michelangelo knew and made his own, it is a reflection of the same divine idea of Beauty. And for Michelangelo the most beautiful thing in creation is the human body, precisely because it is a direct mirror of divine beauty.

The Christie’s work, coming from a French collection, is actually offered for sale for the second time, as the first was blocked by the French government, which had classified the design as a national treasure of France, thus blocking its export for about thirty months. “The French government has recently removed this designation – says Christie’s – by granting the expatriation license and allowing the design to be offered without any restrictions to collectors from all over the world”.

The drawing was sold in 1907 to the Hôtel Drouot auction house in Paris as a work of Michelangelo’s school. The first attribution to Michelangelo himself is very recent, and dates back to 2019, when Christie’s Old Masters specialist Furio Rinaldi, now curator of the Achenbach Foundation for graphic arts at the Fine Arts Museums in San Francisco, analised the drawing and considered it to be from Buonarroti, an attribution later also supported by the art historian Paul Joannides, author of the complete catalog of drawings by Michelangelo and his school at the Ashmolean Museum and the Louvre.

In the auction catalog, no mention is made of a campaign of accurate scientific analysis and studies that provide interesting and compelling elements to corroborate this attribution. We are sure, however, that the current owner and the auction house have ascertained the authenticity of the design: who would spend 30 million without having done the necessary checks? Well, actually .. but that’s another story.

1280px-Pieter_Bruegel_the_Elder_-_Hunters_in_the_Snow_(Winter)_-_Google_Art_Project

January 20 2022

Little Ice Age

Anna calendar, Uncategorized 0

22 December

Winter here is associated with cold weather and sometimes snow. But there have been much colder winters than others.

Several centuries of relatively low temperatures begun around the 15th century. Average temperatures dropped of about 0.6 °C between 1450 and 1850 in comparison with the following 1850–1950 period. It is known as the Little Ice Age.

It brought colder winters to Europe and North America. For example farms and villages in the Swiss Alps were destroyed by encroaching glaciers, canals and rivers in Great Britain and the Netherlands were frequently frozen.

This was particularly evident during the “Grindelwald Fluctuation” (1560–1630) when the colder temperatures were also associated with more erratic weather, increased storminess, unseasonal snowstorms, and droughts.

Agriculture practices throughout Europe struggled to adapt to the shortened and less reliable growing season, and there were many years of deaths caused by famine, hypothermia, bread riots, but also witch-hunting, as Europeans sought explanations for what they were experiencing, and they blamed marginalized groups and individuals, including poor old women, many of them widows. The peaks of witchcraft persecutions overlap with the hunger crises that occurred in 1570 and 1580. Jewish populations were also blamed for climatic deterioration during the Little Ice Age.

There are effects also in art. For example the depiction of winter in paintings occurred almost entirely from 1565 to 1665. Scholars claim that there had been almost no depictions of winter as a stand alone subject in art prior to this period, and hypothesize that the unusually harsh winter of 1565 inspired great artists to depict highly original images. Snowy winter landscapes, particularly stormy seascapes, became artistic genres in the Dutch Republic. All of the famous winter landscape paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, for example, such as The Hunters in the Snow, are thought to have been painted in 1565.

Paintings and contemporary records in Scotland demonstrate also that curling and ice skating were popular outdoor winter sports also there in this same period, with curling dating back to the 16th century and becoming widely popular in the mid-19th century.

And all of this for just a drop of 0.6°C

Matrimoni e banchetti_ le nozze di Maria de’ Medici

January 20 2022

She was the rich one

Anna calendar, Uncategorized 0

17 December

After the marriage by proxy celebrated in Florence in October, the royal wedding between the King of France Henry IV and Maria de ‘Medici was held on 17 December 1600 in the cathedral of Lyon. Maria wore a magnificent and elegant white velvet dress with a purple cloak.

Certainly, there was not the same pomp as shown in Florence, when there were celebrations for 10 days and banquets with 69 courses, sugar statues carved by the court sculptors and a scenography to leave you speechless.

After all, she was the rich one. Marrying her was the solution to the dynastic and financial worries of the newly divorced king of France. Maria de ‘Medici was the granddaughter of the Germanic Roman emperor Ferdinand I, allowing her to ensure a royal lineage in France. In addition, Maria brought a dowry of 600,000 golden scudi and the possibility of cancelling the debt contracted by France with the Medici bank.

The queen was soon pregnant and she gave birth to her first child on 27 September 1601, much to the delight of the king and the kingdom, that had been waiting for the birth of a boy for more than forty years. From the union, albeit stormy for the numerous infidelities of the king, 6 children were born. The first, Louis, became king of France, the second, Elizabeth, queen of Spain.

The French environment, however, was very hostile to the Florentine queen, and after fierce conflicts with Cardinal Richelieu, who had been her protégé, Maria definitively had to leave the French court.

She died in Cologne in 1642, perhaps in the home of her favourite painter, Rubens, who she had entrusted to produce a cycle of twenty-four very large canvases in two years. He managed to finish them in time for the marriage of her daughter Henrietta Maria to King Charles I of England.

Twenty-one paintings represent the Glories and struggles of Maria de ‘Medici, the remaining three are portraits of her and her parents. They are real masterpieces also thanks to the cultural and political sensibility of Rubens who, in deciding the subjects, had to be careful while glorifying Mary not to hurt the susceptibility of other French and European VIPs.

Twenty-four canvases that now enrich the Louvre.

Perhaps Maria would have deserved a better memory than the simple fountain named after her. A very little thing compared to the Luxembourg palace next door, which she built (now is the seat of the French Senate), and which she also adorned, as a good Medicis, with many others paintings that are now in major museums.

November 10 2021

Let’s be Van Eyck

Art Test Uncategorized 0

How many times have we talked about how diagnostics helps to understand the process of making a work of art? About how it is essential to discriminate an original work from a fake. About how it is necessary to understand the autography of an artefact through the layers not visible to our eye. How it is a fun time machine that takes us back to the very moment in which the artist created the artwork. Is like if we sat next to him and watched him. But what happens if we are the artist? Indeed, what happens if we could recreate a work by a given artist in the same way that he himself did it?

For example, we can reproduce a work by following step by step all what we know about Van Eyck and his art.

Do you want to try? You could try to search for Jan Bustin, or other artists that shared their experience.

Some things can only be understood by doing!

September 27 2021

!!!SOLVED!!

Art Test art world, artetestiamo, Uncategorized 0

It wasn’t that difficult to solve the quiz we proposed for last summer.

Many of you answered, but the fastest was Giorgio Foresti, together with Guerrino Lovato.

Art-Test will give them the opportunity to have a reflectography performed with our IntraVedo scanner with InGaAs sensor, still the best technology in this type of analysis.

For those who haven’t guessed yet, here are the paintings: