Original scientific paper
“Christ Falls under the Cross” from the Zagreb Strossmayer Gallery: a glimpse into the history of restoration of baroque painting in Croatia
Višnja Bralić
; Croatian Conservation Institute, Department for Easel Painting, Zagreb, Croatia
Pavao Lerotić
; Croatian Conservation Institute, Department for Easel Painting, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The archival documents recording the history of the painting Christ Falls under the Cross in the Zagreb Strossmayer Gallery since 1942 gave us an opportunity to analyse the relation between the artistic valorisation of the work and the attention paid to its protection and presentation. It was possible to reconstruct not only the approach and methods employed in the restoration of paintings from the 1950s, but also the consideration of some fundamental conservation preoccupations: the treatment of the original layer and prior interventions, and the selection of an adequate level of reconstruction. In addition to a comprehensive overview of the previous attributions, the paper offers some new insights into the painting and its painter, Francesco Cappella (Venice, 1711 – Bergamo, 1784), in the context of the relationship with Federico Benković, Giambattista Piazzetta and Giambattista Tiepolo in 18th-c. Venetian painting.
The paper contains a detailed presentation of the procedures used and results achieved by restoration interventions on this painting between 1954 and 1956 in the workshop of the Institute of Visual Arts of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (former Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts). The detailed records of those interventions have not yet been published and they have allowed us to partially reconstruct the prior extensive interventions on Capella’s painting and to explain the present state of preservation. The conservation carried out in 2008–2009 in the Department of Easel Painting of the Croatian Conservation Institute in Zagreb (by restorer Pavao Lerotić) are briefly presented, with special emphasis placed on the problem of reconstructions and damage retouching.
Keywords
Federico Benković; Giambattista Tiepolo; Francesco Capella; Strossmayer Gallery; Institute of Visual Arts of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts; conservation; Vida Hudoklin; Zvonimir Wyroubal
Hrčak ID:
103589
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2010.
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