“La Visitación” de Fray Guillermo Butler: tratamiento de conservación y restauración

In August 1999, at the request of the Comisión Pro-Restauración of Villa María Cathedral, from Córdoba, Argentina, members of the Restoration School Workshop “Domingo Biffarella” examined eight paintings on canvas, of approximately 1.95 m x 4.40 m, which decorate the central nave. After evaluating their conservation condition and determining the main causes of the recorded damages, they proposed an intervention which was accepted by the ones in charge of the cathedral’s conservation.
Between June 2000 and July 2001, one of the canvas —painted in Paris in 1929 and adhered to the wall at approximately 6.50 meters high— after documentation of its conservation condition, was faced, removed from the wall and rolled up on a wooden cylinder by two conservators and two apprentices, for its transportation to the Municipal Fine Arts Museum “Dr. Genaro Pérez”. Once at the museum’s workshop, it was treated by two conservators and seven apprentices. The canvas was mounted on a rigid wooden support. The gesso and the paint layers were consolidated, the superficial grime and the retouching were removed, the canvas was filled, and the paint layer was retouched and varnished. Finally, the painting was moved and placed on its original location.
This paper describes processes and materials used in the intervention and discusses the results.