2011 Annual Report - National Gallery of Art

40
PRESERVING
Painting conservators completed seventeen major
treatments, forty minor treatments, seventeen
major examinations, and forty-five minor examinations,
as well as the inspections of sixty-nine
paintings in fifteen galleries.
Through treatment, three exquisite fifteenthcentury
Italian Renaissance paintings—Giovanni
di Paolo’s The Annunciation and Expulsion from
Paradise, Fra Carnevale’s The Annunciation, and
Fra Filippo Lippi and Workshop’s The Nativity—
and Titian’s Venus with a Mirror regained a
luminescence and depth not seen for years.
Treatments allowed renewed appreciation of
Albrecht Dürer’s sparkling Madonna and Child,
the beautiful seventeenth-century painting
Isabella Brant by Sir Anthony van Dyck, and
Willem van de Velde’s curious “pen painting”
Dutch Ships near the Coast. A new acquisition, Jean
François de Troy’s The Abduction of Europa and
its companion, Cupid and Psyche, re-acquired
colorful vibrancy following their treatment,
as did Gustave Caillebotte’s Skiffs. Thomas
Gainsborough’s Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
and Gilbert Stuart’s John Jay revealed brilliant
brush work as a result of the removal of the discolored
old varnish. Rembrandt Peale’s Rubens
Peale with a Geranium, George Bellows’ Club
Night, Stuart Davis’ Multiple Views, Mark Rothko’s
Hierarchical Birds, and Ellsworth Kelly’s Tiger, a
cross section of American painting, round out a
chronological listing of the year’s fascinating
major treatments.
Painting conservators provided editorial
suggestions for the online second edition of the
Dutch Paintings systematic catalogue; and
completed the technical notes for the volume
on thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italian
Paintings. Work continued on technical notes
for the sixteenth-century Italian, nineteenthcentury
French, and Early American Modern
systematic catalogues.
Object conservators completed eight major
treatments, 129 minor treatments, forty-nine
major exams, and 1,650 minor exams. Among
these was the treatment of the uniquely carved
Head of a Woman by Amedeo Modigliani that
involved replacing weak and unsightly fills and
securing a mount. The Nativity, a marble relief
by Domenico Gagini, was returned to view following
treatment to correct old repairs and
discolored overpaint. Damage to Rachel
Whiteread’s Ghost, a plaster cast of the space of
an entire parlor, was repaired and inpainted. In