Historical Painting Techniques, Materials, and Studio Practice

Abstract
Extensive examination of Andrea
Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi at
the J. Paul Getty Museum reveals
Mantegna's unusual technique of
painting. Although this painting was
generally described as painted in
tempera or oil, analysis has revealed
the medium to be distemper (animal
glue). The rationale for this technique
is explained here in terms of
aesthetic and environmental constraints
of the fifteenth century as
well as the art-historical context of
the period.
Andrea Mantegna's Adoration of the Magi
Andrea Rothe
Department of Paintings Conservation
The J. Paul Getty Museum.
17985 Pacific Coast Highway
Malibu, California
USA
Introduction
In 1985 the J. Paul Getty Museum acquired the Adoration oj the Magi by
Andrea Mantegna (1431-1 506) (Plate 23) . Nothing was known about the
painting until the early nineteenth century, when it was thought to have been
brought to England by Alexander Baring, first Lord Ashburton (1). It was
first shown publicly in London at the Royal Academy in 1871, and then at
New Gallery in 1894; but with few other exceptions, the painting was not
readily accessible. This might explain why it was sometimes confused with a
nineteenth-century copy, now in the Johnson collection in Philadelphia (2) .
The Adoration was shown again in London in 1981 in the exhibition Splendours
of the Gonzaga, and has since been widely accepted as a late work by
Mantegna, dated circa 1495-1505. The composition of this popular subject
must have been much admired, for at least seven copies by other artists survive
(3).
The horizontal composition with five half-length figures placed tightly
around the Christ Child bears resemblance to other works by Mantegna, such
as The Virgin and Child with Saints in the Galleria Sabauda in Turin and The
Presentation in the Temple in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Mantegna seems
to have been the initiator of this type of composition, which inspired Giovanni
Bellini, Cima da Conegliano, and Vincenzo Catena, among others. Remarkable
are the descriptive features and the distinctive skin color of each
individual figure. Noteworthy is Mantegna's foreshortening of the Christ
Child's right leg, which is reminiscent of the Lamentation in the Brera in
Milan. Most of the execution adheres to Mantegna's original composition,
with the exception of the faces of the Virgin and the Christ Child, in which
the X-radiograph shows Mantegna's original reworking or pentimenti
(Fig. 1).
Analysis of painting technique used in the Adoration
In order to properly restore the Adoration, extensive research on the unusual
technique of this painting was necessary. Although the Getty Adoration was
generally described as painted in tempera or oil, recent analysis carried out
by the Getty Conservation Institute has identified the medium as distemper
(animal glue) (4) . Pioneering research done by John Mills of the National
Gallery in London and other experts in the 1970s drew attention to the fact
that this medium was widely used during the Gothic and Renaissance periods
(5). Within the next decade more accurate methods of analysis were developed
(6). The principal reason fo r the lack of more information has been the
difficulty in analytically distinguishing egg from glue, as both are complex
proteins. The analytical results can also be unreliable because infusions of glues
from later relinings and consolidants make it difficult to determine whether
they are part of the original medium.
Throughout the history of painting, the use of glue as a medium has been
quite common, yet very often paintings in this medium are classified as tempera
paintings, such as the mummy portraits of the late Fayum period (third
century C.E.), which were no longer painted in encaustic, but probably with
a glue medium (7). In Germany and particularly in the Netherlands of the
fifteenth and sixteenth century, thousands of distemper paintings were pro-
Rothe 111