Caitlin Breare’s excellent talk on the Monopoli Altarpiece, a seven-panel polyptych in the collection of\u00a0the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was part of a morning of\u00a0presentations focused on challenges encountered during treatment of painted wood. The fifteenth-century altarpiece originated from the city of Monopoli in southern Italy, but – as became clear during Caitlin’s presentation – it represents an amalgamation of styles. This city was on a trade route between northern Italy and the Mediterranean Sea, and both Venetian and Cretan painting clearly influenced the aesthetic. The altarpiece’s format and use of European poplar for the support is consistent with Italian construction, suggesting that a Venetian workshop may be responsible, while the painting materials and style are consistent with Cretan technique.<\/p>\n
The treatment and research of this work, which had previously been deemed unexhibitable, was begun in 2015. Technical analysis revealed a great deal about the altarpiece’s materials and artist’s technique. Caitlin compared the work’s Cretan aesthetic to the Byzantine\u00a0style with relation to\u00a0the elongated figures and gilded background. The original gilding consists of burnished water gilding over a yellow ochre preparatory layer. While a yellow bole might be considered unusual in other contexts,\u00a0this was a common material for gilders in Crete to employ. The use of a mixture of umber, black, vermilion, and white as a base tone for the flesh was also standard practice\u00a0for Cretan painters.<\/p>\n
Infrared reflectography showed that the underdrawing between the seven panels\u00a0is consistent. Meanwhile, examination of the X-radiograph indicated the presence of scored lines under the paint in each panel, presumably to give texture to the wood before application of the gesso. Such scoring has been observed in the works of other Cretan painters. Examination of\u00a0tool marks resulted in an exciting\u00a0discovery: from the way the tool marks match up, the two panels with the saints directly on either side of Virgin seem to have been\u00a0switched at some point in the past. Reconfiguring the panels\u00a0also makes more sense compositionally, as the saints’ postures now direct the viewer’s eye towards the Virgin.<\/p>\n
Restoration consisting of oil gilding was easily distinguishable from the original water gilding and was removed in the course of treatment.\u00a0Treatment also involved grime removal and the reduction of a discolored,\u00a0locally applied coating, probably consisting of drying\u00a0oil; fortuitously, the coating appears to have protected the paint in some areas.<\/p>\n
The greatest challenge encountered during treatment was the presence of calcium oxalate on the paint surface. The formation mechanism of this\u00a0highly-insoluble brown layer\u00a0is unknown, although Caitlin postulated that perhaps it may be linked to a coating applied over azurite. Another hypothesis is that fungus may be the source. In any case, chelators and mechanical removal were used to reduce the layer as much as possible. Now that the work has been cleaned, George Bisacca will be completing the structural treatment of the panels in the near future, and\u00a0the altarpiece will be returned to the MFA for compensation.<\/p>\n
For more on the altarpiece’s examination and conservation, there is a\u00a0detailed\u00a0summary on the MFA’s website:\u00a0Conservation in Action: Monopoli Altarpiece<\/a>. Although the language in the text is directed towards the general public, the post includes great images and\u00a0time lapse videos of the treatment.<\/p>\n Study\u00a0of the calcium oxalate layer and methods for\u00a0its removal\u00a0were prominent focuses of this treatment, and Caitlin hinted during the question and answer session that she will be looking further into medical techniques that reduce kidney stones as a potential solution for the removal of this type of\u00a0layer. I look forward to seeing how Caitlin’s research progresses!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Caitlin Breare’s excellent talk on the Monopoli Altarpiece, a seven-panel polyptych in the collection of\u00a0the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, was part of a morning of\u00a0presentations focused on challenges encountered during treatment of painted wood. The fifteenth-century altarpiece originated from the city of Monopoli in southern Italy, but – as became clear during Caitlin’s presentation … Continue reading “45th Annual Meeting – Paintings Specialty Group, May 31st, “The Monopoli Altarpiece: Rediscovery and recovery of a Cretan-Venetian masterpiece,” by Caitlin Breare”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,16],"tags":[79],"class_list":["post-16891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annual-meeting","category-specialty-sessions","tag-aics-45th-annual-meeting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/252"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16891"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16891\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.culturalheritage.org\/conservators-converse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}