Before & After Gallery
Conservation Treatment of a Painting Depicting Louis IX, Saint and King of France
There are many rewards associated with the conservation treatment of a work of art. The primary reward, of course, is the satisfaction of having restored the work to its original health and condition, preserving its beauty and giving it another lease on life. Another, equally satisfying reward is the dialogue the conservator establishes with the work of art. At the beginning of the treatment this is simply the collecting of readily available data, but it quickly and continuously evolves into a quest for more remote and less accessible data, relying on the close cooperation of curatorial, scientific and archival staff. The result is a window into the work itself, through which one can see and appreciate the artwork in its entirety—its physical condition, history, context, content, and message. Thus, a lifelong and very personal relationship between the conservator and the work of art is formed.
One such memorable project recently carried out by the Fine Arts Laboratory of CCI was the restoration of a portrait depicting Louis IX, saint and king of France.
History and Provenance
Louis IX, king of France from 1226 to 1270, was the most popular of the Capetian monarchs. He was a man of arts and literature, a splendid knight, an initiator of reforms, an administrator of justice, and a negotiator for peace—his crowning achievement was the treaty he signed in 1258 with King Henry III of England, ending the long struggle between the Capetian dynasty and the Plantagenets.
As a protector of the church, Louis IX enjoyed immense prestige throughout Western Christendom, so much so that the Venetians put into his care the crown of thorns believed to have been worn by Christ. He led the seventh crusade into the Holy Land (1248—1250) and died during another crusade in Tunisia. He was canonized by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297, the only king of France to be numbered by the Roman Catholic church among its saints.
King Louis IX is shown in this painting at the height of his political and religious life, wearing the garb, armour, and spiked crown of the Crusaders. The painting is attributed to Eustache Le Sueur (1617—1655), a painter of French history. Le Sueur was one of the few privileged painters who received his training from Simon Vouet, who soon discovered his student's talent and selected him to assist with various works.
Le Sueur was also very engaged with his own decorative works, in particular the decoration of the apartments of the king in the Louvre. Many of his historical and allegorical canvases are now hanging in major galleries throughout Europe. Given his short career and substantial oeuvre, Le Sueur probably worked with the assistance of his brothers. This unsigned portrait may well be one such example.
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The painting presumably came to Canada in 1730 (along with three bells for the Louisbourg churches) when King Louis XV was building the Fortress of Louisbourg. During the siege of 1745, British forces bombed and set fire to the Citadel at Louisbourg. The painting, which hung in the king's chapel, suffered some scorching on the side of the subject's face, but was saved. It was sent to Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later to London, England.
After the First World War, the portrait was sold at a New York auction house to Mrs. E.N. Vanderpoel, an artist of Litchfield, Connecticut. The painting underwent extensive restoration. In 1955, it was bequeathed to the museum at the Fortress of Louisbourg, 210 years after its departure. Today it is in the custodial care of the University College of Cape Breton Art Gallery in Sydney, Nova Scotia.
Condition
The original hand-woven canvas had been glue-lined onto a commercially made linen canvas and the tacking margins had been trimmed. This process, which may have treated flaking and weaknesses in interlayer paint cleavage, appeared to be in the manner of 19th-century British glue-lining. Paper strips protected the edges of the painting. Adhesion of the two canvases had weakened and caused separation between the supports. Scattered paint and ground losses, which had been concisely luted and inpainted, appeared opaque with varying degrees of greenish fluorescence under ultraviolet light. This also suggested an early 19th-century treatment while the painting was in England.
Of much greater concern to the pending treatment concept were large overpaints covering the neck, face, and part of the king's head and reaching well into the background. These appeared under ultraviolet light as heavy dark patches and testified to the work of a painting restorer while the portrait was in the United States after the First World War.
Both treatments, although a century apart, conformed with the archival findings and set the stage for the treatment proper.
Treatment
Surface cleaning to remove embedded grime and resistant dirt deposits was done using a weak sodium hydroxide emulsion in mineral spirit. This treatment was done in areas of impasto and white painted areas where more grime appeared to have settled. The thick and slightly discoloured natural resin coating, which had apparently been applied during the last restoration with the purpose of concealing the large areas of overpaint, was readily soluble in a mixture of diacetone alcohol and acetone to which even parts of Shellsol were added.
Inconsistent overpaints in other areas of the composition where irregular cleaning campaigns had occurred at different periods were identified and safely removed following chemical analysis and testing with a variety of solvent mixtures. This condition is not unusual for old paintings that have frequently changed ownership and undergone several restorations using different materials. For example, it had been discovered that the entire background was overpainted with a wash containing dry pigment and a water-based medium such as tempera or gouache.
Attention was then focused on cleaning the large repainted areas in and around the face and neck. Initial varnish removal had left behind a rather matte film of old inpaint and overpaint, which was resistant to conventional solvent mixtures.
It is likely that the same water-based medium was used for toning in the background, upon which oil glazes had been added. Preliminary tests using sodium hydroxide in water emulsified with Shellsol softened this old retouching to a degree where it could be removed mechanically with a blunt spatula.
In this manner the entire area of old retouching, which had also covered original paint around the periphery of the large loss, was successfully removed while viewing through a microscope. Although most of a pinkish imprimatura was preserved, there were no traces of an underdrawing design nor remnants of scorched paint. If they existed, they must have been removed during previous restoration treatments.
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Figure 4.
After the cleaning, the glue-lined canvas was mechanically removed and the original support cleaned of all remaining adhesive residues. A prestretched linen canvas of similar weave to the original was prepared and sized with a diluted Rhoplex 234 acrylic emulsion. Both canvases were sprayed with Beva 371 heat seal adhesive in toluene and subsequently lined on the hot table.
Efforts were then directed toward integrating the large missing areas on the king's face, head, and neck. As anticipated, repainting the lost areas could no longer be done satisfactorily without falsifying the original appearance of the painting. Forms and intonation as well as brush work would have to be invented, which would destroy the original character and spontaneity of the portrait.
Following consultation with Mr. Barry Gabriel, Director of the University College of Cape Breton Art Gallery, a pointillistic retouching method was chosen as an alternative to invisible inpainting. This method is generally accepted in cases where authentic reconstruction is no longer possible. It consists of using small dots of colour set closely to each other. Once outlines and shadows had been established (period drawings and engravings of similar subjects were used as guidance), the missing areas were gradually retouched using watercolours. A final natural resin varnish completed the treatment. The portrait appears an integrated whole when viewed at normal distance, yet the extent of the loss remains visible under close scrutiny as a record of the painting's history and the history of the Fortress of Louisbourg.
The conservation treatment of the portrait was completed in time for it to be included in an exhibition at the Fortress of Louisbourg commemorating the 275th anniversary of the founding of the French fortified town and the 250th anniversary of its siege.
CCI, through its treatment of and research into a painting that is so closely connected to the history of Louisbourg and Canada, is honoured to have been able to contribute to that commemoration.
Acknowledgements
The author is grateful for valuable information provided by the curatorial staff of the University College of Cape Breton Art Gallery as well as by his colleagues in the Analytical Research Services of CCI.
