DOI Artikel:
Bastek, Grażyna: New research on Venetian painting based on a group of canvases from the workshop of Michele Marieschi
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18947#0097
attribution of some works, as well as to determine precisely the dates of their
composition; detailed physical-chemical analysis in turn facilitated discovery
of the characteristic typical of individual painters’ workshops.3
Complex research of this kind and the conservation work it entails has been
conducted in many laboratories and museums throughout the world sińce the
1960s. Many outstanding works have been analysed in this way, including
significant portions of certain museums’ permanent collections. Museums such
as the National Gallery in London have submitted their collections to an
ongoing conseryation and examination process, and thus can be justly proud
of the excellent condition of its paintings on exhibition.
Dirt and darkened varnish are today no longer regarded as the patina of
a painting, moreover works that have been significantly painted over and
changed through numerous interferences, thus end up in museum storerooms
unless their aesthetic appeal can be rescued through modern conseryation
methods.
The Serenissima project involved only a group of paintings from a single
school of painting. This does not mean that the remaining paintings in the
gallery of European paintings in the National Museum in Warsaw do not
reąuire similar examination and conseryation. The majority of museum pieces
in Poland, especially older works of art, reąuire not only protective work but
above all cleansing of the discoloured yarnish and overpainting that have
falsified their artistic character, as well as a yariety of other restoration
interyentions.
The Serenissima project is the first of its kind at the National Museum, the
conseryation of a group of paintings whose purpose is mainly aesthetic and
not preventative, while the technological examination is treated not only as
assisting conseryation work, but also as enabling art historians to understand
the structure of the works and the artistic effects achieved by mdividual
painters.
The entire structure of each painting was submitted to detailed analysis,
beginning with the support, through the grounding, the layers of paint, to the
glazes and the yarnishes. In the case of the painting support this involved
dendrological and dendro-chronological exammation of the panels as well as
examination of the structure of the canvas on which the work was painted.4 5
In successive technological parts of a painting’s ground, as in the subseąuent
layers of paint, all the remaining elements of the painting were subjected to
chemical and physical-chemical analysis: the binders, pigments and dyes. Six
supplementary methods” were used to determine the inorganic relations of
3 Complete results of the research will be published in the exhibition catalogue of Serenissima
in the autumn of 1999.
4 Examination of the canvas support has been undertaken by a team under the direction of
Dr Maria Poksińska of the Copernicus University in Toruń, while the wooden supports by
Dr Tomasz Ważny of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
5 Laser microspectral analysis (LMA) by Dr Maria Ligęza; chemical microscopy, classical meth-
ods of optical mineralogy by Maria Rogoż; X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) by Dr Jan Rutkowski
as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) by Anna Rakowska.
91
composition; detailed physical-chemical analysis in turn facilitated discovery
of the characteristic typical of individual painters’ workshops.3
Complex research of this kind and the conservation work it entails has been
conducted in many laboratories and museums throughout the world sińce the
1960s. Many outstanding works have been analysed in this way, including
significant portions of certain museums’ permanent collections. Museums such
as the National Gallery in London have submitted their collections to an
ongoing conseryation and examination process, and thus can be justly proud
of the excellent condition of its paintings on exhibition.
Dirt and darkened varnish are today no longer regarded as the patina of
a painting, moreover works that have been significantly painted over and
changed through numerous interferences, thus end up in museum storerooms
unless their aesthetic appeal can be rescued through modern conseryation
methods.
The Serenissima project involved only a group of paintings from a single
school of painting. This does not mean that the remaining paintings in the
gallery of European paintings in the National Museum in Warsaw do not
reąuire similar examination and conseryation. The majority of museum pieces
in Poland, especially older works of art, reąuire not only protective work but
above all cleansing of the discoloured yarnish and overpainting that have
falsified their artistic character, as well as a yariety of other restoration
interyentions.
The Serenissima project is the first of its kind at the National Museum, the
conseryation of a group of paintings whose purpose is mainly aesthetic and
not preventative, while the technological examination is treated not only as
assisting conseryation work, but also as enabling art historians to understand
the structure of the works and the artistic effects achieved by mdividual
painters.
The entire structure of each painting was submitted to detailed analysis,
beginning with the support, through the grounding, the layers of paint, to the
glazes and the yarnishes. In the case of the painting support this involved
dendrological and dendro-chronological exammation of the panels as well as
examination of the structure of the canvas on which the work was painted.4 5
In successive technological parts of a painting’s ground, as in the subseąuent
layers of paint, all the remaining elements of the painting were subjected to
chemical and physical-chemical analysis: the binders, pigments and dyes. Six
supplementary methods” were used to determine the inorganic relations of
3 Complete results of the research will be published in the exhibition catalogue of Serenissima
in the autumn of 1999.
4 Examination of the canvas support has been undertaken by a team under the direction of
Dr Maria Poksińska of the Copernicus University in Toruń, while the wooden supports by
Dr Tomasz Ważny of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
5 Laser microspectral analysis (LMA) by Dr Maria Ligęza; chemical microscopy, classical meth-
ods of optical mineralogy by Maria Rogoż; X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) by Dr Jan Rutkowski
as well as scanning electron microscopy (SEM) by Anna Rakowska.
91