Csornay Boldizsár - Dobos Zsuzsa - Varga Ágota - Zakariás János szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 97. (Budapest, 2002)
FORRAI, KORNÉLIA HOÓS, MARIANNA-SOMOS, ÉVA: The Research and Restoration of a Painting on Panel, Transferred to Canvas, by Domenico Puligo. Madonna and Child with Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch
of Saint Sebastian the nether layer of Saint Roch's hose, and the flesh of Sebastian, as well. The final hue of Mary's garment was presumably elaborated with a colour that natural rose madder had been added to. White: Judging from its fluorescence under ultraviolet light, it appears to be lead white. As for the painting technique, it can be noted that while the ground contains albumin, the medium of paint is free of it. This phenomenon appears to point out to a date of execution around the time when painting in oil was relatively new: the application of paint in our picture is indicative of a hand skilled in painting with tempera. In the largest part of the painting, colours have been applied in two layers; usually more inexpensive paints or less pigmented substances were used for the undermodelling, which then had been tinted with some finer and more intensive material. The pigments listed above are entirely consistant with the ones commonly used at the time of our painting's execution; however, our statements could be confirmed only by carrying out and analyzing instrumental examinations such as XRD, element analytics, etc. STAGES OF THE RESTORATION Cleaning The chemical cleaning of the painting was done in two phases. First we have dissolved the thick varnish layer and part of the retouchings, then we went on with removing the retouchings over stoppings and the remnants of old layers of varnish (figs. 38-40). There were several "greasy", pastose, dark green retouchings along the top edge and the sides, which could only be removed mechanically, with knives. As it was manifest already at the videomicroscopic examination, these corrections cover the fine craqueleure of the original paint film. The layers of later retouchings and varnishings filled the gaps between the azurite grains in the Virgin's blue gown, so discolouring substances from this surface had to be removed by imbibing with paper-cotton packing. The discovery of three different stopping matters during cleaning has confirmed that the painting was retouched more times. The majority of gaps had been filled up with the bone-white chalky substance that had been used immediately after the transfer. The other two stoppings, used in less areas, are a more "oily" white cement and a coarser paste saturated with black grains and tinted with red-brown colour. Both of them had been applied at a later date than the first one. The last phase of the cleaning was the exposure of the remaining layers of original paint beneath the stoppings. Where the cement expanded beyond the edges of losses, it was removed with knives. This work was best to do immediately after the cleaning with solvents, as stoppings were infiltrated by humidity, and, as a result, became softer and more transparent, so that the original colours became noticable underneath. In order to get a flatter surface the old treatments applied larger covering layers at the overlaps of
