Professional paper
Conservation and restoration of the painting of the Virgin with Child and Saints from the Church of St. Nicholas in Šibenik
Branka Martinac
orcid.org/0000-0002-9009-8130
; Croatian Conservation Institute, Split Department for Conservation, Split, Croatia
Abstract
The painting of the Virgin with Child, St. Nicholas and St. Lawrence originates from the Church of St. Nicholas in Šibenik that was built in the 17th century and used to belong to a confraternity of seafarers and shipbuilders. According to a surviving inscription on the painting, the stone high altar was commissioned by Lovre Tetta, a pious nobleman from Šibenik, and the painting was placed over the altar by his nephew Melchior in 1671. In 2008, the altarpiece was found to be in a particularly poor state of preservation so it was transferred to a Croatian Conservation Institute workshop in Split. Several previous interventions were identified on the painting. The most radical was an intervention from the beginning of the 20th century when the 1671 Baroque painting was completely overpainted. Aside from having been visually altered in the ethically unacceptable intervention, a series of damages were also noted on the painting, having been caused by neglect and long-term keeping in inappropriate microclimate conditions. Prior to deciding on the removal of the inappropriate overpaint, research was conducted in order to give insight into the condition of the Baroque paint layer. It was affirmed that the artistic quality of the original paint layer was superior to that of the overpaint, and since it had been well preserved, a decision was made to remove the overpaint. The paper gives a detailed account of all investigative works and conservation and restoration treatments. The greatest challenge was how to gradually remove the overpaint and reconstruct the form in areas of larger lacunae.
Keywords
Šibenik; Church of St. Nicholas; painting; 17th century; Lovre Tetta; Melchior Tetta; conservation and restoration works
Hrčak ID:
106458
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2012.
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