Mgr. art. Luboš Machačko, Art.D.
Above-standard non-invasive and invasive research and restoration intervention on a baroque oil painting including the determination of the work's authorship based on the art-historical and material research. The surveys included a wide range of special imaging techniques, the most important of which was X-ray imaging on a unique TORATOM device with a large-area detector in the Laboratory of X-ray Tomography of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, scanning in the infrared spectrum with an APOLLO infrared camera and digital microscopy on a KEYENCE VHX 7000N device. On the basis of the material analysis carried out and following the art-historical research of the work and its analogies, the work was attributed to the important Moravian Baroque painter J.K. Handke (will be published in J.K. Handke's comprehensive catalogue). The most serious part of the complex restoration intervention was the removal of the layers of degraded varnish and especially the full-surface repainting, the removal of which revealed the nimbus of the Virgin Mary and the figure of St. Joseph standing in the background and significantly changing the composition of the work. Based on extensive tests, a method using rigid gels with selected organic solvents was used to thin the varnish and remove overpainting. Part of the process was laboratory testing of the possibilities of optimal preparation and use of rigid gels, especially gellan. The result is an extensive study on the subject, which is part of the restoration report. The demanding aesthetic rehabilitation of the work was carried out with imitative retouching with Gamblin Conservation Colors. Part of the treatment was the restoration of the decorative frame incl. surface gilding with sheet metal and shellac glaze.
A detailed description of the restoration is provided in the restoration report.
This work represents an exemplary interdisciplinary project, the fundamental importance of which lies in the fact that, thanks to the complexity of the research and demanding restoration, the total rehabilitation of a rare Baroque work took place, including the rediscovery of the original composition and determination of authorship. From the restoration procedure, we can highlight, among other things, the systematic approach to testing and selection of rigid gels for removing full-surface repainting and their subsequent use in revealing the original composition, or the unique process of bonding the canvas pad using the thread by thread method using natural or synthetic binders.
