Changes to The Wedding Dance as Seen through Two Copies

Abstract

When DIA conservators examined e Wedding Dance, the painting’s close relationship to two early copies became an important point of focus for our work. Not only could we use the original painting to contextualize the copies, but we could use the copies to glean important information about the original painting. Analyzing the copies was especially valuable in helping us understand the paint layers and format of e Wedding Dance. One of the copies, Dance of the Bride (plate 6), dates from shortly after 1566 and is housed at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp. ˆe second copy, Wedding Dance in the Open (plate 7), dates from the late sixteenth century and resides at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin. ˆe comparative study of the Antwerp copy was especially productive because conservator Marie Postec was researching and treating that painting over the summer of 2018 in the Conservation Department of the Antwerp museum.275 ˆe following text will lay out how the Antwerp painting was established as a primary reference source for the Detroit painting and how it shed light on important questions regarding the paint layers of the original. ˆe Berlin copy was a valuable resource for recognizing changes to the format of all three paintings.