According to a story in The Wall Street Journal about the quest of David Steel, Curator of European Art at the North Carolina Museum of Art, to locate a missing panel of Francescuccio Ghissi’s “ St. John Altarpiece” so that he could exhibit the complete altarpiece (“How an Art Curator Solved a 600-Year-Old-Mystery” , by Jessica Barrow Dawson), when he was unable to find it, he turned to mathematician Ingrid Daubechies and conservator Charlotte Caspers to reconstruct it. Daubechies used computer-based mathematical algorithms to figure out the crack patterns and fading that were to be incorporated into the new panel, and used reverse algorithms to produce images of the other eight panels as they might have looked when newly painted. It’s quicker and less costly to restore paintings using algorithms. Might this be the future of paintings restoration?
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AIC Blog Archives: Conservators Converse
Former Blog of the American Institute for Conservation