The work represents the holy family when she leaves the Holy Land to go to Egypt, flee the persecutions of Herod and escape the Massacre of the Innocents. The Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus are perched on a donkey held by Joseph, himself preceded by an angel who shows him the way. On a background of ancient ruins architecture and in the middle of a lush vegetation of date palms, graceful angels accompany the procession and gather fruits from the trees to feed the child and his parents, giving the scene its other title, The Miracle of Dates.
Following a loan to the Fabre Museum in Montpellier in 2019, for theexposure Of white marble and colours Dedicated to the Deydé chapel, the painting was transported in June 2020 in Marseille to the Interdisciplinary Centre for Conservation and Restoration of Heritage (CICRP). He received a comprehensive study and of a fundamental restoration that lasted more than two years.
Entrusted to the hands of qualified conservators-restorers, he was able to benefit from the expertise of the CICRP teams and the technical means of the painting workshop, especially for photographs under different lights.
Although the work was generally in a suitable state of presentation, it had nevertheless undergone alterations that reduced both its physical stability and its aesthetic appearance. The canvas was very relaxed, despite the presence of a rentoilage realized in the middle of the 20th century at the same time as the installation on a fixed wooden frame: the rentoilage was retained, but the frame replaced by a lighter aluminum structure.
The main disorder was the presence of a large inlay in the lower part, which had been installed to replace a lacunary area. The old canvas was probably cut to fit the shape of an altar or tabernacle, and by the 19th century the motif had been completely repainted to complete the image, rather awkwardly because the feet of the characters and legs of the donkey were badly connected to the initial anatomy. It was finally decided to keep this addition, as it did not pose a major problem for the tension of the canvas and is part of the history of the work.
The clean-up also highlighted the existence of six different generations of varnish, and three repaints more or less overflowing, attesting to previous restoration campaigns. The gradual removal of these repaints was followed by a masticage of the gaps by a white coating, then the illusionist retouching in the gaps to restore continuity of reading to the motifs, and finally the laying of a new protective varnish.
The gilt wood frame, dating from the beginning of the 19th century and very heavy, remained in Montpellier, but was the object of a cleaning and a recovery of gilding before the reassembly of the set.
The work was placed on the walls in the deydé chapel, today dedicated to Saint Roch, after having moved two other large paintings. While it was presented since the end of the 19th century in the lower left side of the nave, it thus finds its original location, as it was perhaps hung in the 17th century. Even if the very fine details of Carlone’s painting cannot be seen up close, the visitor of the cathedral can now better admire the movement that animates the scene, the finger of the angel guiding both the holy family and pointing to the choir of the cathedral.
The restoration of the painting was carried out by Iris Brunner, Marie Connan and Josef Vojtek, curators and restorers specialized in easel painting, under the State’s project management (Drac Occitanie, regional conservation of historical monuments), owner of the work. It represented a total cost of €92,593 including taxes for the study, work and installation.
The restoration was followed by a scientific committee associating Alain Chevalier, director of the Musée de la Révolution française - domaine de Vizille (Département de l'Isère), and Pierre Stépanoff, heritage curator at the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, both specialists in ancient painting.
Partager la page