The present study discusses the restoration of the sixteenth-century painting made on wood, which depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds with a holy bishop, by an unknown author, currently preserved in the deposits of Galleria Regionale...
moreThe present study discusses the restoration of the sixteenth-century painting made on wood, which depicts the Adoration of the Shepherds with a holy bishop, by an unknown author, currently preserved in the deposits of Galleria Regionale della Sicilia di Palazzo Abatellis, in Palermo. Throughout the restoration, a graphic and photographic documentation phase and one of research were addressed, being supported by the experience of different personalities in the historical, artistical and technical-scientific-fields, which allowed to obtain useful information on the work being studied. An in-depth archival research permitted to reconstruct the history of the painting from its original location, at the museum of the Benedictine Abbey of San Martino delle Scale, until the current position. The art-historical analysis, together with the executive techniques one, has allowed us to confirm the creation of the work in the last decades of the sixteenth century. The painter seems, indeed, respects the iconographic choices that spread in Sicily in the period after the Catholic-Reformation, thanks to the diffusion of engravings, which would appear to affect on the concise setting and on the painting bluntly graphical style. The comparison of some stylistic details with other known and operating artists in Palermo in the second half of the sixteenth-century, as well as the use of a mixed technique sustain this thesis. The restoration has aimed, therefore, at reestablishment of a good reading of the work, starting from the consolidation operation, whose purpose was to preserve the integrity of all the original constituent layers and removing, however, the previous interventions which disfigured the image. The intention to reinstate the value and completeness of the frame, deprived of an angular decorative element, has stimulated the search for alternative methods and to the casts, however, if is not prohibited, now is limited by the current law. "The function of the frame is defined [...] as a spatial connection" 1 says Cesare Brandi, first "space between the physical environment that surrounds the viewer and the space of the painting," 2 and secondly "between this space and the spatiality of the wall on which the painting is placed." 3 In the case we examined, it was decided to operate in order to find a solution respecting the principles of recognition, reversibility and compatibility, and restore this "spatial connection", putting reverse engineering and materials used in the field of 3D printing at the service of our study. On the latter it has carried out a test phase, with the purpose of confirming their 1 C. Brandi, Teoria…, p. 123. 2 Ibidem. 3 Ibidem.
