Rome, Quirinale – Guido Reni, Chapel of Nativity scene
Date
Monday April 18th, 2016
DATA SHEET
AUTHOR:
Guido Reni
DATING:
XVII century
LOCATION:
Rome , Quirinale – Chapel of Nativity Scene
CUSTOMER:
Central Institute of Restoration – Dott. Giuseppe Basile
THE PROBLEM
The entire chapel is decorated with affresco paintings placed in an apparatus of monochrome stucco enriched with golden elements. On pilasters in the lower order the Virtues depictions are painted in oil on the walls . The chapel was very obscured by layers of dirt and, on the dome due to extensive damages caused by water seepage, altered by the presence of numerous repainting that heavily altered the original appearance. Repainted even the monochromatic parts of the stucco with one or more greyish layers.
THE METHOD
The restoration works were began after a careful examination of the surfaces and a series of scientific studies which had been submitted clarifying any doubt about the presence of repainted parts or otherwise affected by previous interventions. It was possible to identify three types of interventions, some of which in order to fix the state of decay, interventions which were removed because they altered and often placed on the top of original and one instead that added a series of draperies of nudity deemed inappropriate for the place, which it was instead evaluated as an intervention now historicized and then gave up. The cleaning was followed by a careful work of consolidation and pictorial watercolor re-integration.
