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As we have a very few information
about this and the following picture
(both kept in the San Miniato al Monte
Basilica), we decided to describe
briefly the restorations works. Before
the restoration, the painting was
in pretty bad conditions: the canvas
was strongly oxidized and fragile,
furthermore it was very torn and had
many holes (even though of small size).
The poor cohesion between the pictorial
layers was the main cause of many
small colour falls. A large number
of these falls had been filled with
putty in a previous restoration and
the whole picture had been revarnished.
When starting the new restoration,
firstly the colour was protected with
a thin layer made of rabbit glue and
Japanese paper, then (after removing
the picture from stretcher), the colour
was fixed with some rabbit glue. Holes
were filled with pieces of old canvas
and putty, then the picture was backed
according to the "Florentine
manner", that allows to attach
with hot paste the old canvas to a
new defribed canvas, previously treated
with animal glue. This operations
made the surface conditions improve,
so the thin protective layer was removed
and the picture was remounted on a
new stretcher. Cleaning the pictorial
layer made it possible for the restorers
to remove the revarnishings of the
previous restoration, finding out
wide areas of original colours, which
had been hidden until that moment.
The current restoration has been completed
filling the gaps with putty, preparing
the tempera colours and the final
varnishing.
This
painting was restored thanks to the
initiative of the ROMUALDO
DEL BIANCO FOUNDATION
and the co-operation with the project
"BE PART OF HISTORY" by
VIVA HOTELS in Florence. The Project
was created in order to give a contribution
to Florence Artistic Heritage with
restoration of pieces of art of different
Florentine Museums.
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