For the 6th European Day of Conservation-Restoration, we invite you into our conservation studio with an exciting story of a small Venetian portrait. 

The “Portrait of a Young Man” (inv. no. WAF 1151) is currently being investigated as part of a research project on Venetian painting from the 15th to 16th centuries. Most recently, it was attributed to Bartolomeo Veneto (active 1502-1531). The blog post tells the exciting story of its conservation history and recounts how recent investigations led to the discovery of a puzzle piece crucial for its interpretation.

At first glance, the portrait seems like an ordinary panel painting. But on closer inspection, several unusual features stand out to the attentive viewer. The panel is completely plane, without any sign of curvature. Moreover, the black garment appears oddly flat, without any discernible modelling. And until the conservation-restoration that was carried out in preparation for the special exhibition “Venezia 500<<”, multiple darkened retouches pervaded the young Venetian’s face.

To better understand the observations made at first inspection, conservators typically start by looking into the object’s history. Conservation reports are an important source in this process, as they can help to identify damages that have been covered up and reveal traces of earlier treatments. The Doerner Institut’s archive holds documents dating back as far as the early 19th century. In the case of the small portrait, there are even photographs preserved that document restoration measures from the 1930s. At the time, photographic documentation of treatments was not yet state of the arts, but the extraordinary intervention performed on the panel justified the additional effort…

The almost 90-year-old black and white photographs, taken during a restoration campaign in 1936, show the painting in a severely damaged state. Numerous cracks run through its surface which is permeated by holes and losses. The overpainting, which had been carried out in the 19th century to cover up the vast damages, was removed, revealing the full extent of the deterioration. The horizontal cracks in the panel made the whole painting unstable and prone to total loss. In order to preserve the work nevertheless, a rather radical – but historically not unusual – decision was made to remove the picture layers, i.e. ground and paint layers, from the original panel and to transfer it to a new support.

The idea of removing an original painting support and replacing it with a new one emerged in the 18th century. It was regarded as means to preserve the picture layer as the most important component of a painting, since most preservation problems at that time were attributed to the support material (wooden panel or canvas). Today, it is common sense that movements within the support can be reduced by creating stable climate conditions, thus minimising the risk to which the picture layer is exposed. For this reason, transfers have only been carried out in exceptional cases at least since the middle of the 20th century. Historically, there have been two opposing procedures of how to perform the transfer of a painting. One was to strip the picture layer of its support from the front and then reglue it to a new support. The painting “saved” could then be exhibited in direct juxtaposition to the damaged old panel. This method, which was mainly undertaken in the spirit of showmanship rather than out of genuine concern for the artwork itself, regularly caused severe damages to the paint layers. Thus, it was subsequently replaced by a safer procedure, in which the support material was gradually removed from the reverse after the paint layer first had been secured through paper applied with glue to the surface. What remained was the thin picture layer, which could then be reglued to a new support. In 1936, when the transfer of the “Portrait of a Young Man” was performed, this was the approach that had become prevailing. In general, however, the treatment was already highly controversial at the time and was only applied as “ultima ratio”, as last resort.

The cracked panel of the Venetian portrait was gradually removed from the reverse until only the ground layer remained. To transfer the picture layer to the new support, a fine fabric was glued to the ground as an intermediate, stabilising layer. Prior to this, a new priming may have been applied to “fill up” the thinned ground layer to its former thickness. For the new support, a modern glued laminated panel was chosen because it is stable against unwanted deformation. The filling und retouching of the numerous losses was done with great precision, even including painted craquelures – the typical network of fine cracks running across the surface of old paintings – to imitate the aged paint layer.

Radiography has been employed for the examination of paintings for many decades. X-rays visualise hidden constructive details, compositional changes made during the painting process or later damages. But in case of the small-scale portrait, the informational value of the radiographic image is limited as it is obscured by the inner structure of the glued laminated panel to which the painting was transferred. A more recent imaging technique, also employing X-rays, the so-called macro X-ray fluorescence imaging (contact-free analysis of chemical elements with false colour mapping) provides clearer results in this case. In a number of element distribution mappings, a stole, i.e. a wide strip of fabric, is clearly discernible, placed over the sitter’s shoulder and held in his right hand. The discovery of this detail, which is invisible to the naked eye due to the painting’s state of preservation, helped explain the otherwise odd posture of the sitter’s hand that is almost clenched to a fist in front of his chest.

The golden signet ring that the young man holds out to us shows a conspicuous coat of arms. It can be identified as the crest of the Zane family which ranked among the long-established Venetian upper class. One occasion for the commission of the young man’s portrait may have been his admission the Great Council of Venice (Maggior Consiglio) in which Venetian nobili like him assumed political responsibility between the ages of twenty and twenty-five (for more on the socio-historical background, cf. Johanna Pawis, New discoveries: insights into research on Veneto, Giorgione and Tintoretto at the Alte Pinakothek’, in Venezia 500<<. The Gentle Revolution of Venetian Painting, A. Schumacher (ed.), pp. 128–153, 246–251, here: 134–136, Munich: Hirmer Publishers 2023).

 The painting is on display from 27 October 2023 until 4 February 2024 as part of the exhibition “Venezia500<<. The Gentle Revolution of Venetian Painting” in the Alte Pinakothek.