Műtárgyvédelem, 2004 (Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum)

Összefoglalók

The next chapter of the study deals with the result of the estimation of the condition of the object before lending, the features of the injuries and the changes that happened in it’s condition . In result of the thorough and detailed preliminary work, a conservation method was chosen that was estimated the most advantageous. A short section was dedicated to the description of the questions that emerged in the course of the elaboration of the conservation method and the choice of the method. We respected the principle of minimal intervention and we did not intend to create new completions.

In the closing section, the process of the restoration, its execution and the method of transportation is described.

OVERPAINTED CURTAINS

REASSESMENT AFTER ITS RESTAURATION OF A 16'" CENTURY PICTURE DEPICTING THE MADONNA Ildikó Fehér

Graduating restorer student of the MKE, Zsófia Emri restored the oil painting painted on a wood panel in the 2001/2002 academic year. We have no data on the painter, and the circumstances of commission of the picture, which the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest owns. Art history hasn’t studied so far this high quality although not first-rate painting. Based on our current knowledge, we need to look for the painter in the workshop of Girolamo del Pacchia in Siena between 1508 and 1535, or among the painters around him.

As a result of the restoration work, green coloured drapery drawn back in an archlike shape on both sides of the Madonna’s head became visible (picture

4.). It became obvious after the technical studies that the deletion of the drapery is not a result of a repainting of the picture but a correction by the painter himself, an adjustment taken during the course of accomplishment so it’s part of the original picture just like the main figures. We can find a drapery motif near the Madonna similar to the one in style on the table under study on several pictures attributed to Girolamo del Pacchia. That’s not exceptional by any means since from about the 11,h century onwards, the use of drapery somewhere around Maria starts to become popular and in the 15-16lh centuries, mainly on Venetian paintings they become something like a topos.

Via some significant examples, the study aims to give an overview of the development of the cortina motif from the earliest calendar from 354, only known from copies, to the the first decade of the 16th century. On the earliest occurances of the motif, the drapery hides the late antique and Bizantine rulers and emperors. Soon this use of the drapery became popular and high-ranking officials, consules, bishops, Christian saints and from the 12"1 century, in a reference to Christ’s revelations (Matthew, 27,51), evangelists hid behind the cortina. By the end of the Middle Ages, the motif became part of Maria’s iconography, referring to the motherhood of the Virgin. At the same time, the curtains of the Temple in Jerusalem, which was the origin of the motif, became totally forgotten.

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