MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON Technical Examination

Transcription

1 MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON Technical Examination Object Number: Attribution: Circle Of: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (Dutch, ) Title: Evangelist Writing Culture/Period/Dated: Medium: Oil on canvas Dimensions: x 84.5 cm (41 1/8 x 33 1/4 in.) Image: Technical Examination: Project summary: A survey of the 17th century Dutch and Flemish paintings in the MFA, Boston collection was performed from Fall 2009 through Spring 2011 in preparation for a catalogue of these works. Each painting was x-radiographed and examined in ultraviolet and infrared radiation as well as under stereoscopic magnification to gather information about construction and technique. Treatment History: Finlayson patched a tear in the upper right, removed a gamboge and umber toning and recent varnish layer from the face. Partially removed an older, hard varnish, but not completely due to the "thinness of the painting" and the danger of full cleaning the painting. Cleaning revealed losses in the left side and the shadows of the face (losses revealed dark underpainting below). These losses were touched out by Lowe. The painting was revarnished Lowe removed latest varnish layer and some of the older varnish below it. These cleaning revealed additional losses which were touched out. The painting was varnished with damar Finlayson removed surface grime and revarnished with damar autoradiography performed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art; pigment assay established all pigments are in keeping with Rembrandt's palette, but the manner of paint application is considered clumsy and formless, likely 19th century. Infrared examination: Nothing of note is revealed in IR. X-radiography: #521 #1366, 9 films, 55kV 6mA 60seconds, 76" focal distance The xray reveals very broad, smeared brushwork and two marked changes; to the left of the head is a rounded form of another headress created with strokes of a palette knife and a great deal of aimless scratching into the wet paint. There is an area of density between the hands of the figure that does not correspond to the surface composition. In general the x-radiograph suggests nothing of Rembrandt or an artist working in his manner. The canvas exhibits cusping on three sides, not the top edge. The left and bottom edges retain a portion of the original tacking margin, as the fold and the old tack holes are visible. These were unfolded and retained while the other tacking margins were trimmed away. The canvas weave is very fine. There is a large area of loss at the neck of the figure. Ultraviolet examination: There is a thick, discolored natural resin coating that is very oxidized and nearly opaque in UV. It has been partially removed from the figure as described in the treatment history.

2 Page 2 of 5 Technique and condition: Support - The fine canvas is glue-lined onto a coarser fabric and stretched onto a 6-member stretcher with mortise and tenon slot joins in the corners and dovetail lap joins for the cross bars. All 12 keys are extant. There are two painted inscriptions on the lining verso, one in black, "183C" and one in white, "No. 241 J.R.". Ground - There is a double ground layer; first a red layer on the canvas followed by a gray layer (see photomacrograph #1). This mimics a typical ground structure of Rembrandt paintings on canvas prior to the 1640s. Paint - The paint is applied quite thinly and transparently in the background, allowing the ground color to reflect through the layers. The figure is built up with thick impasto and the flake loss reveals underpainting that suggest a different initial composition, as revealed by the x-radiography and autoradiography. The color below the flesh tone in the face is a cooler, grayer flesh tone and there is a black paint layer revealed through abrasion below the red garment. XRF analysis detected cadmium in 5 locations (see M. Derrick's report). Microscopic examination of these sites reveal that overpaint is present in all cases (see photomacrographs that show the upper cadmium-containing paint covering cracks and floating in the varnish layer). Therefore, cadmium, and its earliest possible introduction date in the early 19th century, does not impact the dating of the painting. Proposed Treatment: None. Technical Publications: M. W. Ainsworth, Art and autoradiography: insights into the genesis of paintings by Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Vermeer, Metropolitan Museum of Art, D. Bomford, J. Kirby, A. Roy, A. Rüger and R. White, Art in the making : Rembrandt, London : National Gallery Company Ltd., distributed by Yale University Press, C. Brown, A. Roy, Rembrandt's Alexander the Great, The Burlington magazine 134, no (1992), pp A. Burroughs, A Problem in the Rembrandtesque, Miscellanea Leo Van Puyvelde, Bruxelles, Éditions de la Connaissance, 1949, p A. Chong, ed., Rembrandt Creates Rembrandt: Art and Ambition in Leiden, , Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, Waanders Publishers, Zwolle, K.M. Groen, Earth Matters: The origin of the material used for the preparation of the Night Watch and many other canvases in Rembrandt s workshop after 1640, Art Matters: Netherlandish Technical Studies in Art 3, Zwolle: Waanders, p K.M. Groen, Grounds in Rembrandt s workshop and in paintings by his contemporaries in A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 4, E. van de Wetering, ed., Dordrecht, the Netherlands : Springer, C. Laurenze-Landsberg, Neutron activation autoradiography of paintings by Rembrandt at the Berlin Picture Gallery, In Conservation Science 2002: papers from the conference held in Edinburgh, Scotland, May J.H. Townsend, K. Eremin, A. Adriaens, Eds., Archetype Publications Ltd. (2003), pp P. Noble, A. van Loon, New insights into Rembrandt's Susanna: changes of format, smalt discoloration, identification of vivianite, fading of yellow and red lakes, lead white paint, ArtMatters: Netherlands technical studies in art 2 (2005), pp P. Noble, A. van Loon, Rembrandt's Simeon's Song of Praise, 1631: pictorial devices in the service of spatial illusion, ArtMatters: Netherlands technical studies in art 4 (2007), pp

3 Page 3 of 5 H.von Sonnenburg, Rembrandt/not Rembrandt in the Metropolitan Museum of Art : aspects of connoisseurship, vol.1, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N. Stolow, J.F. Hanlan, R. Boyer, Element distribution in cross-sections of paintings studied by the X-ray macroprobe, Studies in conservation 14, no , pp J. Wadum, Rembrandt under the skin: the Mauritshuis Portrait of Rembrandt with a gorget in retrospect, Oud Holland 114, no. 2-4 (2000), p J. Wadum, Rembrandts erster "hässlicher" Akt: "Andromeda" von ca restauriert und untersucht. (Rembrandt's first "ugly" nude: "Andromeda" dated approximately 1630, restored and examined.), Restauro: Forum für Restauratoren, Konservatoren und Denkmalpfleger 109, no. 7 (2003 Oct-Nov), pp J. Wadum, A Unique Rembrandt Rediscoverd: The Crusader, an Oil Sketch for The Knight With the Falcon (St. Bavo), , Restauro 112, no.2, 2006, p E. van der Wetering, Painting Materials and Working Methods in J. Bruyn et al, eds., A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings, vol. 1, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1982, p E. van der Wetering, Rembrandt: The Painter At Work, Amsterdam University Press, (1997). A.K. Wheelock, Jr., Rembrandt inventing himself in Rembrandt creates Rembrandt: art and ambition in Leiden, , A. Chong, ed., Waanders Uitgevers (2000), pp R. White, and J. Kirby, Rembrandt and his circle: seventeenth-century Dutch paint media re-examined, National Gallery technical bulletin 15 (1994), pp Equipment specifications: X-radiography Philips industrial X-ray tube, MCN 165, with a maximum operating kilovoltage of 160. Infrared photography and reflectography FUJI Pro 3 IRUV (Silicon CCD detector with IR senstivity up to 900nm and 4256 x 2848 pixel detector, produces infrared digital photographs-irdp) Goodrich Near Infrared Camera (Indium Gallium Arsenide detector with IR sensitivity up to 1700nm and 640 x 512 pixel detector, produces infrared reflectograms-irr) The Fuji shoots high resolution images with lower IR sensitivity while the Goodrich is capable of excellent IR imaging with a low resolution detector. If it is necessary to use the Goodrich camera in order to capture detectable underdrawing or compositional changes, a composite image of multiple small captures is assembled using Adobe Photoshop software. Microscopic examination of the surface is performed with an Olympus SZX12 stereomicroscope and photomacrographs are taken with a Nikon D700 using Camera Control Pro 2 software. Photomacrographs are labelled with their viewing magnification.

4 Page 4 of 5 CON18614 Photomacrograph 10x mag CON18615 Infrared digital photo CON18616 Photomacrograph location CON18617 Ultraviolet fluoresence photo CON18618 Verso CON18619 Wax seal on verso CON X-radiograph #1366 CON Infrared Reflectogram composite CON Auto-radiograph #1 CON Auto-radiograph #2 CON Auto-radiograph #3 CON Auto-radiograph #5 CON Auto-radiograph #6 CON Auto-radiograph #7 CON Auto-radiograph #8 CON Auto-radiograph #9 CON Infrared reflectogram CON Photomacrograph locations CON XRF sample point 3 CON XRF sample point 5

5 Page 5 of 5 CON XRF sample point 6 CON XRF sample point 12 CON XRF sample point 25 Conservator: 9 April 2010 K. Smith Date