Unveiled secrets of paintings
The role of restoration in the identification of individual works of art – When a painting itself reveals its special technique of creation
MúzeumCafé 39.
During my five decades of work as a restorer, in addition to my activities in the Museum of Fine Arts [see the interview with the author in MúzeumCafé No. 19 – Ed.] I have also been commissioned with many tasks by different museums. In addition, I have worked as a specialist for the National Monuments Protection Inspectorate. My work for these museums and institutes is more or less well-known. Here, however, I would like to address another matter – my commissions in connection with privately owned works of art; about cases that involved works which command interest in view of their art historical significance. I don’t want to go into great detail about the specialist questions of restoring those paintings, rather about the antecedents of the works, their circumstances and subsequent fate. I’d like to recall three such cases, plus a fourth where in the course of its restoration I had an experience which is rarely encountered in the profession. Chronologically, the first painting appeared for assessment at the Museum of Fine Arts in the 1980s. The second was a 16th-century Venetian paining, which I was first able to study in 1994, in the storeroom of the Nagyházi Gallery. The background to the restoration of the third painting cannot be considered as a typical story. The work got to Hungary at a time and by means which today can no longer be determined. From the very beginning the fourth painting already reflected the genius of Rubens. However, precise identification was provided in the course of restoration by the painting itself. The significance of the inscription was ext-raordinary: it gave the year, the painter’s name, the place where the work was kept, who he copied and the special painting technique applied.