Tales of the Unexpected

Conservators’ prolonged proximity to paintings makes them ideally placed to notice anything unusual or surprising which might arise during examination or treatment. Ensuing investigations, often aided by technical analysis, include the recent increasingly widespread use of macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) scanning which has led to a raft of new discoveries. The papers in this volume look at the unexpected from a variety of periods and places of origin, and from a range of perspectives: practical, technical, historical and ethical.

Conservators’ prolonged proximity to paintings makes them ideally placed to notice anything unusual or surprising which might arise during examination or treatment. Ensuing investigations, often aided by technical analysis, include the recent increasingly widespread use of macro X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) scanning which has led to a raft of new discoveries. The papers in this volume, presented at the British Association of Paintings Conservator-Restorers’ conference ‘Tales of the Unexpected’ in Conservation’, look at the unexpected from a variety of periods and places of origin, and from a range of perspectives: practical, technical, historical and ethical.

Foreword
Acknowledgements

Introduction
Hayley Tomlinson

Tudor portraits of the Le Strange family of Hunstanton: Sir Thomas Le Strange (1493/4–1545)
Emma Boyce Gore

Shedding the centuries: the rediscovery of an early sixteenth-century banco
Molly Hughes-Hallett

Integration of macro X-ray scanning and reflectance hyperspectral imaging into research and conservation activities at the National Gallery, London
Marta Melchiorre Di Crescenzo, Catherine Higgitt, Rachel Billinge and Marika Spring

Discovering Beuckelaer?
Alice Tate-Harte and Rachel Turnbull

Cracking the Dutch painter Jan van der Heyden’s ‘art secret’
Jae Youn Chung, Mary Kempski and David Peggie

When is a landscape not a landscape? When it’s a portrait!
Miranda Brain and Jon Old

Sometimes the unexpected is as good as gold: discovery of gilded elements in Tiepolo’s Bacchus and Ariadne 
Sarah G. Murray and Barbara H. Berrie

Revealing secrets of Three Figures Dressed for a Masquerade attributed to Louis-Joseph Le Lorrain
Joanna Strombek

Turner’s unknown portraits
Susan Breen, Joyce H. Townsend and Ian Warrell

An unexpected product of the George Dawe painting factory
Rosanna de Sancha

Examining Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe from the Courtauld Gallery using spectral imaging techniques
Silvia Rita Amato, Maureen Cross, Aviva Burnstock, Koen Janssens, Joris Dik, Laura Cartechini, Anne Michelin and Aurélie Tournié

Conception, idiosyncrasy and immateriality in the London paintings of Matthijs Maris (1839–1917): challenges in interpretation and conservation
Laura Raven and Erma Hermens

A brief comparative study between some of Tate’s collection of Léger paintings
Francesca Secchi

What lies beneath: technical discoveries, intention and practice in the early work of Mark Gertler
Aviva Burnstock and Sarah MacDougall

• Edited by Mary Kempski
• Edited by Jo Kirby
• Edited by Victoria Leanse
• Edited by Kristina Mandy

"This book should be considered a great tool, not only for those in the early stages of their career, but for those who have already come a long way in painting conservation. Readers can immerse themselves in the scientific side of conservation were technical analysis and diagnostic tools are used to better understand how and why objects were made and, consequently, how to better preserve them, savouring all the trials and details involved in the rediscovery of paintings hidden or compromised by earlier interventions." For IIC by Raissa Palacios, 10 July 2023
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'This book should be considered a great tool, not only for those in the early stages of their career, but for those who have already come a long way in painting conservation. Readers can immerse themselves in the scientific side of conservation were technical analysis and diagnostic tools are used to better understand how and why objects were made and, consequently, how to better preserve them, savouring all the trials and details involved in the rediscovery of paintings hidden or compromised by earlier interventions.'

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