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Conserving the Past for the Future

About the Exhibition

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This painting had been rolled up and folded.

Lorenzo Lotto (Italian, 1480-1556)
Portrait of Man, about 1525
Oil on canvas
42-1/2 x 39-1/2 inches
Gift of the Hanna Fund 1950.250

This painting (on view in Gallery 219) recently underwent conservation treatment because it had suffered total paint losses in many areas. The patterns of loss indicate that the painting been water-damaged, rolled up, and folded. Fortunately, the intact areas of original paint include the most important compositional elements such as the head, table-top, sword hilt, balustrade, and land-scape. Much of this became understood during careful initial examination of the painting and its x-radiographs. During treatment, a thick, darkened varnish and previous restorations were removed and the damaged areas were inpainted using easily removable acrylic paints. The new restorations were carried out as minimally as possible to allow more of the original details to be visible than earlier restorations had allowed.

Treatments

Conservation treatments are performed for several reasons.

A structurally insecure work might need to be stabilized to prevent further deterioration. If the process of deterioration or a past restoration treatment has unacceptably altered the appearance of an artwork, then a new treatment might be undertaken to bring the work's appearance closer to its original state.

As much as possible, treatments must be reversible in order to allow the undoing of one approach in favor of another at a later time. As new methods and technologies evolve and replace those of the past, the "tracks" left by conservation treatments must remain both invisible and removable.

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