RESTORATIONS - "The Last Supper" - Florentine
School unknown painter
Florentine
School unknown painter (XVII/XVIII century)
:: The
Last Supper
San Miniato al Monte Basilica, Florence
Oil on canvas, 87 x 160cm
As we have
a very few information about this and the
previous two pictures (all kept in the San
Miniato al Monte Basilica), we decided to
describe briefly the restorations works.
Before the restoration, the painting was
in good repair. The canvas was lightly oxidized,
there were no weft/warp interruptions and
there was good cohesion between pictorial
layers, except for the edges, where you
could see some colour falls. There was no
trace of previous restoration works. The
painting was firstly protected with a thin
layer made of rabbit glue and Japanese paper,
then it was removed from the stretcher and
it was mechanically cleaned from the back.
The colour was fixed with rabbit glue. After
that the picture was backed according to
the "Florentine manner", which
allows to attach with hot paste the old
canvas to a new defribed canvas, previously
treated with animal glue. Since there was
non need to get a further improvement of
the surface conditions, the thin protective
layer was removed and the picture was remounted
on a new stretcher. Now we could start the
aesthetic restoration by cleaning the pictorial
layer and filling the gaps with putty. The
putty was made of plaster and glue and it
had the same colour of the tempera colours
which were used for the gaps. After the
first varnishing (made with a brush with
mastic resin) the restoration was completed
with tinted varnishes.
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.