This _chef d'oeuvre_ was in such a lamentable state of decay, that
the French commissioners who selected it, wereunder the necessity of
pasting paper over it in order to prevent the scales, which curled up
on many parts of its surface, from falling off during its conveyance
to to Paris. In short, had not the saving hand of art interposed,
this, and other monuments of the transcendent powers of the Italian
school, marked by the corroding tooth of Time, would soon have
entirely perished.
As this picture could not be exhibited in its injured state, the
Administration of the Museum determined that it should be repaired.
They accordingly requested the Minister of the Interior to cause this
important operation to be attended by Commissioners chosen from the
National Institute. The Class of Physical and Mathematical Sciences
of that learned Society appointed to this task, GUYTON and
BERTHOLLET, chymists, and the Class of Literature and Fine Arts named
VINCENT and TAUNAY, painters.
These Commissioners, in concert with the Administration, having
ascertained the state of the picture, it was unanimously agreed that
the only mean of saving it would be to remove it from the worm-eaten
pannel on which it was painted. It was, besides, necessary to
ascertain the safety of the process, in order that, without, exciting
the apprehensions of the lovers of the arts, it might be applied to
other pictures which required it.
The Report of the four Commissioners before named, respecting the
restoration of the _Madonna di Foligno_, has been adopted by the
Classes to which they respectively belong, and is to be made to the
National Institute at their next public sitting on the 15th of Nivose
(5th of January, 1802).
In order to make you perfectly acquainted with the whole of the
process, I shall transcribe, for your satisfaction, that part of the
Report immediately connected with the art of restoring damaged or
decayed paintings. This labour, and the success by which it was
attended, are really a memorial of what the genius and industry of
the French can achieve. To all those who, like you, possess valuable
collections, such information cannot but be particularly interesting.
"The desire of repairing the outrages of time has unfortunately
accelerated the decay of several pictures by coarse repainting and
bad varnish, by which much of the original work has been covered.
Other motives, too, have conspired against the purity of the most
beautiful compositions: a prelate has been seen to cause a discordant
head of hair to conceal the charms of a Magdalen."
"Nevertheless, efficacious means of restoration have been discovered:
a painting, the convass of which is decayed, or the pannel
worm-eaten, is transferred to a fresh cloth; the profane touches
of a foreign pencil are made to disappear; the effaced strokes are
reinserted with scrupulous nicety; and life is restored to a picture
which was disfigured, or drawing near to its end. This art has made
great progress, especially in Paris, and experienced recent
improvement under the superintendance of the Administration of the
Museum; but it is only with a religious respect that any one can
venture on an operation which may always give rise to a fear of some
change in the drawing or colouring, above all when the question is to
restore a picture by RAPHAEL."[1]
"The restoration may be divided into two parts; the one, which is
composed of mechanical operations, whose object is to detach the
painting from the ground on which it is fixed, in order to transfer
it to a fresh one; the other, which consists in cleaning the surface
of the painting from every thing that can tarnish it, in restoring
the true colour of the picture, and in repairing the parts destroyed,
by tints skilfully blended with the primitive touches. Thence the
distinctive division of the mechanical operations, and of the art of
painting, which will be the object of the two parts of this Report.
The former particularly engaged the attention of the Commissioners of
the _Class of Sciences_; and the latter, which required the habit of
handling a scientific pencil, fell to the share of the Commissioners
of the _Class of Fine Arts_"