Monumental Bellini Altarpiece Undergoes Major Restoration in Public View
Articolo pubblicato su ArtNet – Autore: Richard Whiddington
- Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece will undergo its most extensive restoration in over 500 years.
- Too fragile to move, the 15th-century masterpiece will be restored behind glass in public view.
- The two-year, €500,000 project will stabilize the wood panel and analyze pigments using advanced imaging.
In the 1810s, a commanding Giovanni Bellini altarpiece was removed from its custom-crafted stone frame inside San Giobbe church and moved across Venice to the Gallerie dell’ Accademia. More than three centuries of damp had deteriorated the wood panel painting and it was in serious need of restoration.
According to the museum, the San Giobbe altarpiece—full name: Madonna and Child Enthroned, Music-Making Angels and Saints Francis, John the Baptist, Job, Dominic, Sebastian and Louis of Toulouse (c. 1478)—is set to receive the most comprehensive restoration of its more than 500-year history. The problems are fundamentally two-fold. First, the painting bears long cracks across its surface due to temperature fluctuations causing the wood to expand and contract. Second, the painting’s original pigments have changed color over the centuries.
The two-year project will initially see experts stabilize the painting’s wooden support. At the same time, Bellini’s altarpiece will be analyzed using ultraviolet fluorescence and infrared imaging to reveal the artist’s original composition and the effects of previous restorations (there have been half a dozen since the early 19th century). Only then will the painting be cleaned, using gentle solvents to remove dirt and old varnish, touched up with compatible and reversible pigments, and protected with a new stable varnish.
Stages of handling and moving the painting. Photo: courtesy Matteo Panciera/Gallerie dell’ Accademia.
“Restoring the San Giobbe Altarpiece in the presence of the public is not only about caring for an absolute masterpiece of our collection,” the museum’s director, Giulio Manieri Elia, said in a statement. “It’s about demonstrating how scientific knowledge, responsible conservation, and visitor communication are integral to the museum experience.”
The late Bellini work, which was painted at the same time as San Giobbe was being built, is considered a milestone in the evolution of Venetian altar painting. First, there’s the perspective and scale, with viewers looking up at a monumental painting that reaches more than 15 feet in height. Moreover, instead of presenting Madonna, Child, and worshipful accomplices across separate spaces, Bellini offers architectural harmony with a barrel vault ceiling and a curved marble walls accommodating his cast of saints.
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