Episode 24 - Reinforcements
Dirk Bouts, The Entombment, c 1450s
Glue tempera on canvas, 34 ½ x 29 in (87.5 × 73.6 cm)
National Gallery, London
Justus of Ghent, The Adoration of the Magi, c 1475
Distemper on canvas, 43 x 63 in (109.2 x 160 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Old patches on reverses of paintings
Strip lining - strips of canvas adhered to the edges of the reverse of a canvas
The top edge of The Entombment
Lining canvas is visible through the holes in the original canvas, and traces of brown paper tape are visible along the edge
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Countess Skavronskaia, 1790
Oil on canvas, 53 x 37 ½ in (135 x 95 cm)
Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris
Paper tape along bottom edge suggesting a glue-paste lining
The bottom edge of The Entombment
Light brown painted border along the edge
Left and right edges of The Adoration
Brown painted borders along the edges
Detail of The Entombment
Staining on the gray tomb caused by penetration of the lining adhesive
Reverse of The Entombment
Canvas visible is the lining canvas; stretcher is non-original
Justus of Ghent, The Adoration of the Magi
Darkening and patchiness caused by lining
The Adoration reverse during treatment in 1957 - note old patches
The Adoration X radiograph - the stretcher is non-original
Recommended Reading
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David Bomford, Ashok Roy, and Alistair Smith, “The Techniques of Dieric Bouts: Two Paintings Contrasted,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin
Vol. 10, 1985
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David Bomford and Sarah Staniforth, “Wax-Resin Lining and Colour Change: An Evaluation,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin, Vol. 5, 1981
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Westby Percival-Prescott, “The Lining Cycle: Fundamental Causes of Deterioration of Painting on Canvas: Materials and Methods of Impregnation and Lining from the 17th Century to the Present Day,” Conference on Comparative Lining Techniques, Greenwich, United Kingdom, 1974
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​Sophie Scully and Christine Seidel, “A Tüchlein by Justus van Ghent: The Adoration of the Magi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art Re-Examined,” JHNA 8:1 (Winter 2016), DOI: 10.5092/ jhna.2016.8.1.3 https://jhna.org/articles/tuchlein-justus-van-ghent-adoration-of-the-magi-metropoli tan-museum-of-art-re-examined/