Raphael masterpiece returns after 10 years
After 10 years of painstaking study and restoration that tested both
cutting edge technology and human patience, one of the greatest
masterpieces of the Italian Renaissance is returning to the public.
Raphael's "Madonna of the Goldfinch" is a survivor.
The 107 cm by 77 cm (42 inches by 30 inches) oil-on-wood, showing the
Madonna with two children caressing a goldfinch, has outlived everything
from the collapse of a house in 1547 that shattered it to the ravages of
time and the mistakes of past interventions.
The result of the restoration is stunning. Centuries of brown film
and grime are gone. The Madonna's cheeks are pink. Her robes are deep
red and blue and one can almost hear the cascade of a stream in the
background Tuscan countryside.
"This patient gave us the most shivers and the most sleepless
nights," said Marco Ciatti, head of the department of paintings at
Florence's Opificio Delle Pietre Dure, one of Italy's most prestigious
state-run art restoration labs.
"We spent two whole years studying it before deciding whether to go
ahead because with the damage it suffered in the past - which was
clearly visible in the x-rays - a restoration attempt could go wrong,"
he said.
X-rays, CAT scans, reflective infra-red photography, lasers, men and
women in white coats, microscopes, latex gloves - it sounds like the
stuff of hospitals and in many ways it is.
But the Opificio is no ER. It has everything but the pressures of
time. It is a place of slow healing.
"In the past we decided not to restore something because the risks of
damaging or altering the original were too great," said Ciatti, 53.
"We see ourselves as a doctor who treats the patient as a whole
rather than concentrating on a specific illness." Raphael, who lived
from 1483 to 1520, painted the panel in about 1506 as a gift for the
marriage of Lorenzo Nasi, a rich wool merchant.
Known in Italian as the "Madonna del Cardellino", it shows the Virgin
with two children symbolising the young Christ and John the Baptist.
The goldfinch is a symbol of Christ's future passion because the bird
feeds among thorns.
When the Nasi house collapsed in 1547, the work shattered into 17
pieces. Ridolfo di Ghirlandaio, a Raphael contemporary, used nails to
join the pieces and paint to hide fractures.
REUTERS |