"Although the mechanical labour is subdivided into several
operations, it was wholly intrusted to Citizen HACQUINS, on whose
intelligence, address, and skill, it is our duty to bestow every
commendation."
"The picture represents the Virgin Mary, the infant Jesus, St. John,
and several other figures of different sizes. It was painted on a
pannel of 1-1/2 inches in thickness: a crack extended from its
circumference to the left foot of the infant Jesus: it was 4-1/2
lines wide at its upper part, and diminished progressively to the
under: from this crack to the right hand border, the surface formed a
curve whose greatest bend was 2 inches 5-1/2 lines, and from the
crack to the other border, another curve bending 2 inches. The
picture was scaling off in several places, and a great number of
scales had already detached themselves; the painting was, besides,
worm-eaten in many parts."
"It was first necessary to render the surface even: to effect this, a
gauze was pasted on the painting, and the picture was turned on its
face. After that, Citizen HACQUINS made, in the thickness of the
wood, several grooves at some distance from each other, and extending
from the upper extremity of the bend to the place where the pannel
presented a more level surface. Into these grooves he introduced
little wooden wedges; he then covered the whole surface with wet
cloths, which he took care to remoisten. The action of the wedges,
which swelled by the moisture against the softened pannel, compelled
the latter to resume its primitive form: both edges of the crack
before-mentioned being brought together, the artist had recourse to
glue, in order to unite the two separated parts. During the
desiccation, he laid oak bars across the picture, for the purpose of
keeping the pannel in the form which he wished it to assume."
"The desiccation being effected slowly, the artist applied a second
gauze on the first, then successively two thicknesses of grey
blotting paper."
"This preparation (which the French artists call _cartonnage_) being
dry, he laid the picture with its face downward on a table, to which
he carefully confined it; he next proceeded to the separation of the
wood on which the painting was fixed."
"The first operation was executed by means of two saws, one of which
acted perpendicularly; and the other, horizontally: the work of the
two saws being terminated, the pannel was found to be reduced to the
thickness of 4-1/2 lines. The artist then made use of a plane of a
convex form on its breadth: with this instrument he planed the pannel
in an oblique direction, in order to take off very short shavings,
and to avoid the grain of the wood: by these means he reduced the
pannel to 2/3 of a line in thickness. He then took a flat plane with
a toothed iron, whose effect is much like that of a rasp which
reduces wood into dust: in this manner he contrived to leave the
pannel no thicker than a sheet of paper."
"In that state, the wood was successively moistened with clear water,
in small compartments, which disposed it to detach itself: then the
artist separated it with the rounded point of a knife-blade."
"The picture, thus deprived of all the wood, presented to the eye
every symptom of the injury which it had sustained. It had formerly
been repaired; and, in order to fasten again the parts which
threatened to fall off, recourse had been had to oils and varnishes.
But those ingredients passing through the intervals left by such
parts of the picture as were reduced to curling scales, had been
extended in the impression to the paste, on which the painting
rested, and had rendered the real restoration more difficult, without
producing the advantageous effect which had thence been expected."
"The same process would not serve for separating the parts of the
impression which had been indurated by varnishes, and those where the
paste had remained unmixed: it was necessary to moisten the former
for some time in small compartments: when they were become
sufficiently softened, the artist separated them with the blade of
his knife: the others were more easily separated by moistening them
with a flannel, and rubbing them slightly. It required all the
address and patience of Citizen HACQUINS to leave nothing foreign to
the work of the original painter: at length the outline of RAPHAEL
was wholly exposed to view, and left by itself."
"In order to restore a little suppleness to the painting, which was
too much dried, it was rubbed all over with carded cotton imbibed
with oil, and wiped with old muslin: then white lead, ground with
oil, was substituted in the room of the impression made by paste, and
fixed by means of a soft brush."
"After being left to dry for three months, a gauze was glued on the
impression made by oil; and on the latter, a fine canvas."
"When this canvas was dry, the picture was detached from the table,
and turned, in order to remove the _cartonnage_ from it with water;
this operation being effected, the next proceeding was to get rid of
the appearance of the inequalities of the surface arising from the
curling up of its parts: for that purpose, the artist successively
applied on the inequalities, flour-paste diluted. Then having put a
greasy paper on the moistened part, he laid a hot iron on the parts
curled up, which became level: but it was not till after he had
employed the most unequivocal signs to ascertan the suitable degree
of heat, that he ventured to come near the painting with the iron."
"It has been seen that the painting, disengaged from its impression
made by paste and from every foreign substance, had been fixed on an
impression made by oil, and that a level form had been given to the
uneven parts of its surface. This master-piece was still to be
solidly applied on a new ground: for that, it was necessary to paste
paper over it again, detach it from the temporary gauze which had
been put on the impression, add a new coat of oxyde of lead and oil,
apply to it a gauze rendered very supple, and on the latter, in like
manner done over with a preparation of lead, a raw cloth, woven all
in one piece, and impregnated, on its exterior surface, with a
resinous substance, which was to confine it to a similar canvass
fixed on the stretching-frame. This last operation required that the
body of the picture, disengaged from its _cartonnage_, or paper
facing, and furnished with a new ground, should be exactly applied to
the cloth done over with resinous substances, at the same time
avoiding every thing that might hurt it by a too strong or unequal
extension, and yet compelling every part of its vast extent to adhere
to the cloth strained on the stretching-frame. It is by all these
proceedings that the picture has been incorporated with a ground more
durable than the original one, and guarded against the accidents
which had produced the injuries. It was then subjected to
restoration, which is the object of the second part of this Report."
"We have been obliged to confine ourselves to pointing out the
successive operations, the numerous details of which we have
attended; we have endeavoured to give an idea of this interesting
art, by which the productions of the pencil may be indefinitely
perpetuated, in order only to state the grounds of the confidence
that it has appeared to us to merit."