Mikó Árpád szerk.: "Magnificat anima mea Dominum" M S Mester vizitáció-képe és egykori selmecbányai főoltára (A Magyar Nemzeti Galéria kiadványai 1997/1)

TANULMÁNYOK / ESSAYS - MENRÁTH PÉTER-HERNÁDY SZILVIA: M S mester Vizitáció-képének restaurálása

also, at the parts which had been „overcleaned" earlier. Instead of cleaning the entire surface, Kákay left untouched those reconstructional repairs which he found appropriate: for example, the vertically directed paintlosses on the necks of Mary and Elizabeth and on the house on the top of the hill above their heads. He also kept the earlier repairs added to the golden background, not applying any gold retouching at all. Nevertheless, the adequate protection of the painting continued to be a problem; signs of further deterioration appeared a few years after the restoration. The panel split at the middle, and the paint layer and the ground lifted in large areas. This made the panel's reinforcement using a dovetail joint necessary. In 1960 the painting received a new, ornamental frame and a protective glass cover. Between 1967 and 1971 the painting was shown in the exhibition series „Hungárián Art of Seven Centuries" and was, therefore, constantly moved and frequently subjected to climatic changes. In the light of these circumstances, the further deterioration and the appearance of more areas where the ground and the paint layer lifted were only natural. The protective glass cover, which only worsened the critical condition of the painting, was removed. However, restoration work continued to be limited to fixing the surface and adding smaller retouchings. In 1974 the Visitation was exhibited in Kúria, the old civil administration building. Then, along with the entire Old Hungarian Collection, it was transferred to the Royal Palace of Buda Castle. In 1975, in the course of the checks to determine the picture's condition before putting it up for the new exhibition, it was observed that „a blistering of the paint layer appeared in one larger and one smaller area".

5 The picture was considerably damaged, when the collection's storage room was flooded in 1977. The varnish became opaque and the paint layer lifted in ridges in several areas. Once again, this had to be fixed and the varnish had to be regenerated. Before the new exhibition opening in 1982, the Visitation was restored again, and the smaller lacunae were repaired. However, in the antechamber to the throne room, its condition failed to stabilize, which was immediately signalled by the continually recurring lifting of the paint layer in smaller areas. Although these were repaired from time to time by laying the paint with a spatula, the painting nevertheless continued to deteriorate in front of the eyes of both the visitors and the art historians day by day, to the point that finally, in 1989, it had to be removed from the exhibition.

6 By that time it became apparent both to the restorers and to the art historians that in this case, in sharp contrast to the „palliative treatment" of the previous years, a thorough and analytical restoration was called for. The task of the restorers was two-fold. On the one hand, they had to determine the causes of the deterioration, then find a way to protect both the panel and the painted surface and carry out the painting's aesthetic restoration; and on the other hand, in the course of the analytical restoration, they had to carry out all kinds of physical, chemical and photographic examinations, as well as to observe and document every relevant phenomenon and detail, which might be helpful in the academic evaluation of a painting so highly esteemed in Hungarian art history, thus contributing to a better understanding of the lifework of a master of European stature. Although the Visitation had been restored several times, by the time of the acquisition of the panel it showed no signs of extensive overpainting. In 1952, after the partial cleaning of the painted surface, György Kákay Szabó added further retouchings - leaving intact the retouchings he thought acceptable -, applying a new layer of toned varnish to the surface. While laying the paint with a spatula in the course of later restorations, these retouchings were damaged in several places. With the retouchings done to conceal these damages included, there were three types of retouchings at the time of the museum's acquisition of the panel. Combined with the effect of a protective layer of wax and resin applied over the entire surface of the painting in 1989, these three types merged into an indistinguishable overall image. Preliminary Examinations The examinations carried out in the course of the restoration had to be divided into two groups. The so-called non invasive examinations belonged to the first phase: analyses and photographic processes documenting the condition of the painting at the start of the restoration (areas of paintloss, overpaints, and traces of earlier restorations). Also, the examinations aimed at locating and recording the various specifics of the painting technique (for example, underdrawing, or the distribution, quality and quantity of the elements of large atomic mass number (pigments), etc.) form part of the same phase. In the second phase, the examinations revealing the specific use of materials, as well as identifying those painting techniques which were characteristic of both the period, the master and the workshop concerned, were continued, along with chemical and physical examinations aimed at isolating the overpaints and other restoration work using techniques different from the original one: examinations which could only be carried out during restoration, and after the cleaning in particular. In the 15th and 16th centuries the various workshops generally used the same materials, and very similar painting techniques. In addition to revealing this broadly used and almost generally accepted practice, the