A masterpiece restored

I'm fascinated by the incredible care and painstaking attention to detail required to restore old masterpieces. For example, the restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes held my interest for many years.

Now Raphael's five-hundred-year-old 'Maddona Of The Goldfinch' has been restored. According to a news report:

Raphael, who lived from 1483 to 1520, painted the panel in about 1506 - when he was still a teenager - 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.

It later became part of the collection of Florence's powerful Medici family, who commissioned several interventions aimed primarily at covering traces of the fissures.

Next month, the painting goes on display in Florence's Palazzo Medici in an exhibition on the restoration. Then it will return to its long-time home in room 26 of the Uffizi Gallery.

'We will celebrate it like the return of our prodigal daughter,' said Antonio Natali, the head of the Uffizi.

The enlarged X-ray image below shows the joints in the painting caused by the 1547 accident. Click it (and the other images) for a larger view.

'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.

Here a technician works on the painting using a microscope and special lighting.




This triple image shows the painting before restoration; during the restoration process; and as it is now, fully restored. Magnificent!




Congratulations to the restoration team on a job well done!

Peter