As in the final decades of the last century, the National Gallery seems to be returning to the center of sharp criticism for the way it conducts conservation and restoration interventions on the works in its collection.
We had already written about this here: Have restorers at the National Gallery of London gone mad.. again? – Art-Test
This time, the subject of debate among experts and ordinary enthusiasts is the restoration of the Madonna and Child with Pomegranate, attributed to Botticelli’s workshop, held at the National Gallery in London.
The theme of the video Making the golden haloes from Botticelli’s workshop sparkle | Stories | National Gallery, London presenting the restoration is: “How can one reconstruct areas where the gilding of a 15th-century painting has been lost?”
However, many are asking whether it should instead be: “Why reconstruct areas where the gilding of a 15th-century painting has been lost?”
As in the case of removing areas of historically stratified overpainting, intervening to restore gilding also indicates a very specific direction currently being observed in restoration policies, especially in Northern Europe.
In the specific case of the painting from the Florentine master’s workshop, UV fluorescence imaging was used to identify areas where traces of the adhesive originally applied by the artist for the gold leaf remained—gold leaf that, over the centuries, has deteriorated and fallen away.
The UV images therefore served as a guide for new gilding, carried out using new adhesives and new gold leaf in order to recreate an image as close as possible to what the painter had envisioned.
As in the case of removing areas of historically stratified overpainting, intervening to restore gilding also indicates a very specific direction currently being observed in restoration policies, especially in Northern Europe.
In the specific case of the painting from the Florentine master’s workshop, UV fluorescence imaging was used to identify areas where traces of the adhesive originally applied by the artist for the gold leaf remained—gold leaf that, over the centuries, has deteriorated and fallen away.
The UV images therefore served as a guide for new gilding, carried out using new adhesives and new gold leaf in order to recreate an image as close as possible to what the painter had envisioned.
In the specific case of the painting from the Florentine master’s workshop, UV imaging was used to identify areas where traces of the adhesive originally applied by the artist for the gold leaf remained—gold leaf that, over the centuries, has deteriorated and fallen away.
The fluorescence images therefore served as a guide for new gilding, carried out using new adhesives and new gold leaf in order to recreate an image as close as possible to what the painter had envisioned.
A methodology that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.
“Restoration means conservation. Everything that has not been preserved and protected is restored.” With this statement, at the end of the 20th century, G. Urbani, then director of the Central Institute for Restoration (ICR), suggested that the best restorations were those never carried out and expressed the hope that efforts would focus on planned conservation, so as not to be forced, sooner or later, to resort to restoration—a term here deliberately used in its negative sense, implying the notion of “undergoing a restoration.”
The issue raises a crucial question: should restoration be limited to preserving the work as it has come down to us, or can it go so far as to “reconstruct” what has been lost? For a long time, a cautious approach prevailed, tied to the idea of safeguarding material authenticity and opposed to creative interventions, in line with 20th-century theoretical reflections. This perspective aimed to avoid any risk of falsification, even at the cost of leaving visible gaps.
In recent years, however, a different orientation has been emerging, one that places greater importance on the legibility of the image and the viewer’s visual experience. From this perspective, a certain degree of reintegration may be considered acceptable, provided it is grounded in technical and analytical data.
The case of the National Gallery clearly shows the limits and risks of this shift.
On the one hand, new technologies allow for more informed interventions; on the other, they also increase the temptation to “improve” artworks, shifting the balance toward aesthetic concerns. The boundary between interpretation and arbitrary reconstruction, however, remains very thin and easily crossed.
The more cautious position, such as that advocated by Urbani, also stemmed from an objective limitation: knowledge of materials and degradation processes was (and in part still is) incomplete. For this reason, he argued that it was better to intervene as little as possible, and above all through actions that slow the natural deterioration of artworks.
Today, technologies have improved, but this does not eliminate the problem. On the contrary, precisely because more sophisticated tools are available, the temptation to use them to “enhance” the appearance of artworks increases. The risk is that restoration, from a conservative practice, may gradually return to privileging the image over the material, reopening—under new forms—issues that were thought to have been settled.
In reality, there could be a synthesis between the two approaches that poses no risk to the artwork while still allowing for improved legibility. This would involve using diagnostic imaging not to achieve a physical reconstruction, but a virtual one. This could offer numerous advantages, including a better understanding of the potential and results of the remarkable world of diagnostic investigations.
