INNOVATIVE APPROACHES FOR THE RE-INTEGRATION OF FIFTEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH PANEL PAINTINGS

Abstract

The Suermondt-Ludwig Museum (Aachen) holds five Spanish fifteenth-century panel paintings in their collection. The five panels are all fragments, likely removed from their original settings at the turn of the nineteenth century during the upheaval of the Napoleonic Wars and sold on the art market after extensive restoration.   Three of these five panels have been already treated at SRAL. The additional two will undergo a full conservation campaign in the coming year carried out in collaboration with conservation students from the University of Amsterdam and conservation training programmes in Spain.   A treatment protocol was devised to ensure a systematic and sympathetic treatment, including reintegration. This provided key skill development for the trainee conservators. The removal of non-original surface materials revealed overcleaned and severely damaged surfaces. The integration of these surfaces required an innovative approach to return a sense of authenticity to the artworks, individually and as a disparate group. The subtle shift in gloss and texture between areas of paint and gilding, between different pigments bound in animal glue, egg tempera, and oleo-resinous glazes had been lost. The selection of conservation materials for infilling and retouching aimed to return this ephemeral play on light to the surfaces. This paper will discuss this innovative approach using the reintegration of one of the set of five panel paintings: the “Adoration of the Kings” (Inventory number: GK 243) as a case study. The materials were carefully chosen so as not to be mistaken for original materials in the future. The approach entailed thinking out of the box and approaching the filling and retouching stages simultaneously rather than as independent actions. This allowed a more holistic strategy to reintegration than if all losses were filled first prior to retouching.   The filling materials utilised are based on a studio formulation consisting of a novel combination: Arbocel 500 (cellulose fibres) bound in a mixture of Aquazol 500 (poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline)) and Methocel A4M (methylcellulose) bound in water. This mixture was used to fill deeper losses and modified with aluminium hydroxide powder to create a surface fill. The protocol used began with testing of the materials to find the right formulation; adaptations for the typology of fill were incorporated into this design. The filler formulation is modified to best adapt to the specific losses in each area of each panel. The decision not to re-varnish the panels allowed filling and retouching to be carried out simultaneously and the different gloss surfaces of individual paint areas to be imitated by modifying the amount of retouching binding media (Aquazol 200 dissolved in ethanol/water). The resulting appearance allows different colour and surface finishes to retain their independent characteristics and returns a more authentic surface finish to the fifteenth-century artworks.