The Virgin with the Sleeping Child Jesus: study of two overlapping images
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14568/cp2018006Keywords:
Canvas painting, Pigments, Radiography, Overlay painting, Smalt, SEM-EDXAbstract
This paper presents the study of an anonymous painting on canvas with the representation of The Virgin with the Sleeping Child Jesus. During the restoration process, an underlying paint was detected and the radiograph showed the existence of an underlying composition. The theme is the same, apparently in the finished pictorial phase, but flipped horizontally with respect to the visible picture, as if it were its specular image. This infrequent circumstance aroused a study of materials with the aim of trying to trace the avatars of the work over time. The results of the stratigraphic analysis by microscopic techniques (OM and SEM-EDX) show the use of very similar pigments. The use of colored ground in the original paintings and especially the use of smalt in all cases, together with the analysis of the style of both representations as well as the models used, lead us to situate the execution of both works, the visible and the underlying, in the end of 17th or beginning of 18th century.
Received: 2018-2-28
Revised: 2018-5-14
Accepted: 2018-6-3
Online: 2018-6-22
Publication: 2019-1-10
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