[Music]
This painting shows the 'Adoration of the Kings',
painted by Botticelli. Florentine
restorers and framers in the mid-19th century were extremely skilled at
sort of faking up paintings with new frames
that looked like old ones. This is quite
common, for these long panels to develop
a slightly concave warp. The frame elements
were carved to fit it. When I looked at the x-rays,
I realised that actually, I could see the
paint was continuing
under the mouldings of the frame, therefore
the frame was definitely covering
original paint.
At the sides the frame didn't fit very well,
and so extra bits of painting were added,
and they're not
terribly well done. Everybody agreed that the
frame should be removed. Britta: Jill's done a
really careful cleaning, and we're ready
now to actually
have a look underneath this 19th century frame.
This is an extremely exciting but
slightly nerve-wracking moment for me. I
will just be
helping Britta, who's actually going to
remove the frame.
We began the process of removing the
frame with the easier part,
which was taking the frame mouldings off the sides,
because ideally you want it to come off
in one piece. It's not a disaster
obviously. And then there's also, there's
a crack in the panel, so
that at the same time
so while I lever it up, I don't really
want to damage either the panel or the frame.
And this is a good sort of test really,
in terms of them coming and working
where we know that there's paint
beneath the frame, because we know that here,
the original paint only comes up to here, so
we know that there's just wood
underneath here, so
it's not such an issue. Jill: That shows now
the original wood, and then
these borders, where the painting had been extended.
This removal of the sides went very well,
and we will now do the really difficult
bit, which is removing
the mouldings from the top and the bottom.
Of course it's more difficult, because
the nails were sticking out
through the moulding, so it was
particularly important that they didn't
slip back and scratch the surface of the original paint,
so my job was really just to keep my fingers underneath
to stop that happening. We've now got two
nails free, and I've got my fingers under them,
so don't let it go. The bottom, I have to
admit, was initially a little bit
disappointing. I'd already noticed in the
x-ray that there were shadowy
areas, which told me there was no paint.
So I thought, there are losses,
and I think in fact what may have
happened is that there is water damage
along the bottom edge. The whole panel
may have sat
in water for some reason, and that caused
the paint to flake.
That might even have been one reason for them
reframing the painting. But the top was
better than I'd ever dared hope. As we
levered it up,
everything that I was hoping and
expecting to see
from the examination of the x-ray appeared.
So we now see the full
architecture of the stable, these curious black and white
broken mouldings, and then the architecture here,
of this huge square arch, which made so
little sense when it was
cut by the frame, we now understand the perspective